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Twenty-One Sermons 



OR 



ADVANCED LESSONS 



IN 



Christian Science, 



BY 



George Edwin Burnell, 



PASTOR 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH, 

200 East Market Street, 
AKRON, OHIO. 



THE WEflNE* PTQ. & LITHO. CO. , AKRON, O. 



TWENTY-ONE 



NEW 



Christian Science 



SERMONS. 






BY 



; U 8 4 / W 



George Edwin burnell, 



PASTOR <>p- 



C. S. CHURCH, AKRON, OHIO, 

200 E. Market Street. 
60 



■ ' 



THE LIBRARY 
or CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



r3s 



COBYRIGHT 1S9I 
BY 

George Edwin Burxell. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



CONTENTS. 



I'AGE 

I. Omnipresence ( Infinite Good ) I 

II. Omnipresence (Infinite Word; 10 

III. Omnipresence (Infinite Holiness) 13 

IV. Omnipresence (The All-One) 18 

V. Omnipotence 23 

VI. Omnipotence *. 29 

VII. Omniscience 36 

VIII. No Evil 39 

IX. No Matter 49 

X. Perfection 56 

XI. Divine Love . " 62 

XII. Individuality ' 66 

XIII. Man-Woman 72 

XIV. Faith 77 

XV. The Law Si 

XVI. The Church 87 

XVII. Gethsemane 92 

XVIII. Gethsemane (Peace) 96 

XIX. Gethsemane (Peace) iqo 

X X . Gethsemane ( Peace ) 104 

XXI. Jesus Christ 108 



OMNIPRESENCE. (Infinite Good.) 

. Everybody admits that God is Good. 

Everybody admits tnat God is Infinite. 

Everybody admits that God is Infinite Good. 

The highest statement ever put forth as from the very mouth of God is, "I am 
the Lord thy God, and beside Me there is none else." 

If this statement is true, it declares that there is nothing but Infinite Good. 

I, of myself, and for myself, and to myself, and by myself, do positively know, 
and do hereby definitely and absolutely state, that there is now nothing but Infinite 
Good. This is my example. Do thou likewise. 

I am glad to witness in this presence that I am now convinced to my full and per- 
fect satisfaction that there never was, is not now, and never can be anything at all 
but God, the Infinite Good. 

I do not say this from books or from external and experimental evidence, but 
wholly and altogether from faith — that is, from my own self-evidence of what is true 
and must be true. 

I must also witness to you and to all angels that this innate fact convinces me 
that I am and must be Divine, for there is and can be nothing else for any one to be 
forever. 

I am glad to witness to you and to all in the universe, that you are all Divine, 
as I am, for there is nothing but Divinity for any of us to be. 

- Whoever speaks truth is heard throughout the whole of God, the Infinite Universal 
Good, hence our confession of our Divine Being is sealed by the Holy Spirit of All-Being. 

If any one can speak truth, all can. Then all must. Then we must. By so 
speaking we shall set free all in bondage to untruth, which must be of mere 
habitual imagination. 

If Jesus of Nazareth could say, " I am God," then we can. He advised us in 
these words, " Follow me." 

If we credit the Scripture we must read thus: ist. "All things are possible with 
God." 2d. "All things are possible to them that believe." 

Notice that Jesus of Nazareth said these words. 

Notice two things else: ist. He made the highest statement he could in any 
words by saying, "All things are possible." No higher statement than this can be 
made. 2d. By the words, " them that believe," he must me'an no other than Man. 
Whence*we see that he gives as much power to Man as he does to God. He gives 
all possible power to each; that is, he calls Man and God, each Omnipotence; that 
is, "All things are possible to them that believe," and " to God." This is doing no 



other than calling Man God, or saying God is Man. This is why Jesus called 
himself God. This is why you must do so to follow him. 

You do not call yourself God to make yourself different than you are. Calling 
yourself anything cannot change your real nature. You must be what you are. I am 
just what I am. I must be just what I am. This is changeless law, called Divine 
Substance. 

When Jesus called himself God he did not mean his fleshly body at all. He said, 
" The flesh profiteth nothing." So when you say you are God, you do not mean your 
flesh is God, for you cannot call yourself God until you know that your flesh is 
nothing. 

Jesus did not call 'his intellectual carnal mind, his material Selfhood-God, for 
he said, "Of myself," that is, my carnal self, " I can do nothing." 

But when speaking of His God-Self, He said, " I and the Father are One." "All 
Power is given unto Me both in heaven and on earth." 

So you can not call your carnal self of nothingness, God, but you must call your 
God-Self, your Divine Being, your Self-Being Nature — this you have no choice but to 
call God. Hence you say just in the same words which Moses used — " I am the 
Lord Thy God, and beside me there is none else." 

The widespread dogma of the world is that man is selfish. It is instantly con- 
demned and sentenced to punishment as a sin, for who ever thought of selfishness being 
other than a stalwart vice, full of all evil and worthy of nothing but punishment? 

Let us be just and candid, for it is an ill wind that blows no one any good. Re- 
member that we are convinced on the basis of pure reasoning that there is nothing 
but Good, hence we must find out what Good there can be covered under the dark idea 
of selfishness, for surely it must be but the rough husk of some rich and bright good, 
just as a good and loving and true heart often beats beneath a most shaggy and un- 
likely exterior. 

Of course, if selfishness is to be condemned in one person or condition, it is so in all. 

If, for instance, God were selfish, then we have no right to condemn man for 
being so. 

If it is selfishness to desire financial gain, then it is equally selfish to want spiritual 
profit, for there is no intrinsic difference in the motive called greed for gold, and that 
called greed for heavenly bliss. 

If the object desired were to be the standard by which a motive is to be adjudged 
virtuous or vicious, then we lapse at once into the well-known fallacy of hypocrites, 
namely, that the end must justify the means. 

If, for instance, the end be to enhance the power and prestige of the Church of 
Christ, it were rare virtue to murder a thousand heretics who presumed to hold an 
honest opinion in spite 'of the majority vote in an ecclesiastical caucus. 

Besides, this could not 'be strange reasoning at all for minds which could believe 
that the Divine God of Love could cast vast multitudes of His naughty children into 
torments, for eternity, for not setting their whole hearts on His glory, as He, Himself, 

— 6 — 



in His selfishness has done, for any God whose chief and only purpose in all His acts 
is self-glorification, may not be surprised if His children take after Him. 

But there is a royal way out of all such absurd difficulties. 

In the first place, selfishness is always a necessity which must be the essential 
and substantial condition of Self-Being, or Self-Existence. 

God is Self-Existent Being, that is, He exists by Himself, of Himself, to Himself, 
in Himself, and for Himself. In fact, this is the nature of All-Being, for there cannot 
be anything unless it be itself, and nothing else whatsoever. 

Xow, Self-Being is no other than selfishness, hence the very nature of God must 
be selfish; so we may not find it otherwise than that His purposes must focus in self-glory. 

This can not be at all against our good, since God Being Good, in glorifying 
Himself, really glorifies All-Good, for God is, and must be All-Good, to be God. 

If vou read the Scriptures, you cannot but find them emphasizing on every hand 
the eternal Self-Glorification of All-Being, called God, the Infinite Good. 

If God exists but to glorify Himself, we may expect to find Man doing so also. 
And this is exactly what we do find. 

But odd as it may appear, -we also find that what is in God, the climax of His glory, 
in Man is condemned as his chief vice- 
When Jesus Christ calls upon us all to love our neighbor, He does not tell us not 
to love ourselves, but rather to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

He might as well have told God not to Be as to have told Man not to love his 
own Being. To be is to love. The only way to stop loving is to stop Being. 

Since Omnipresence is Love, there can be no presence that is not Love. Hence 
our Presence must be and is Love now. 

Because Omnipresence is One and Indivisible, we must be the whole of Omni- 
present Being, in which there can be only Love. Since we can only love, if we have 
any consciousness of ourselves at all, we are forced to love ourselves. This is the 
Divine Necessity of Self-Glory. This redeems selfishness and clothes it in white glory. 

To love one's self is the essence of selfishness. God must love Himself, hence must 
be selfish. All Love is self-Love, for Love is Self-Being. 

Be broad enough, that is, wise enough, to know that you can not love yourself 
except you love your neighbor, for your neighbor is yourself, since we are all one. 

What essential difference is there between the poor convict, Jean Valjean, who 
stole a loaf of bread because he was too selfish to let himself starve to death, and the 
mighty God of Orthodoxy, who populates His Spirit Kingdom by murdering sixty 
mortals per second, which mortals are to be used in His domain to sing and serve in 
the supreme glorification of Himself? 

Now, we cannot find it in us to deny the Divine privilege of Supreme Being of 
Self-Glorification. In fact, we find it utterly impossible for Being to be unless for its 
own sa*ke and glory. 

But we are ready to maintain that Man is as much Being as God is, and that 
since Man and God is forever One Being, their self-glorification is one Infinite Good. 

— 7 — 



We can neither separate Man from God, nor God from Man, for we can not by any 
means depart from the necessitous law of All-Being, which is Oneness. 

Now, what is called selfishness in Man is called glory of Self in God. 

If God loves Himself, then we must " be imitators of God," as Paul suggests. We 
must say with Jesus, "And now, O, Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own Self, 
with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." Jesus set us a high 
example, and we must obey the truth. 

Let us know that selfishness is not a vice, but a supreme virtue. Knowing this, 
we shall do unto others as we would that they should do unto us. We shall not, 
and can not condemn anyone for loving himself, but set a noble example of loving 
others as ourselves. 

The love of self is the criterion by which we love and cherish the good -of others. 

It is a noteworthy fact that the one who hates himself invariably hates every- 
body else. 

Be on good terms with yourself as God is, and so you neither accuse nor are 
accused; neither condemn, nor are condemned, " for" it is written, "There is now 
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus;" that is the Infinite Good of Man-God, 
One Supreme Good Being unto the ages of ages forever. 

Whoever sins is self-adjudged, self-condemned, self-punished. 

God never sentences anyone to death or the Inferno. Your own word is your 
judge, and man's word is his only burden. 

No one can sin who does not believe in sin. No one can do or think evil who 
believes in the Infinite Good. 

If God is the cause of All that is, then it is self-evident that there can be no evil 
or sin unless God, the All-Cause, father it. If we believe in evil, -we accuse God of 
being the cause of evil. If we believe in sin, we accuse God of causing sin. 

To accuse God of causing evil is the same as condemning God with evil, for if 
we say one is the cause of evil, we know that to cause evil is to be evil. Hence 
God cannot cause sin without sinning. 

But if God be Good there can be neither evil nor sin. 

The truth is, there is no sin; there is no evil. The truth makes us free. Who does 
not feel freer when the thorn of evil and sin is taken from the conscience, as a dark 
shadow is put out by an influx of light? 

God knows that there is no sin. This is His forgiveness of sin. Let us declare 
everywhere the forgiveness of sin. Let us forgive everybody. Let us forgive ourselves, 
thus love everybody as ourselves, and this is the love that covereth a multitude of sins. 

The putting away forever of the dark lie of sin and evil is sure to introduce you 
at once to the real heaven within you. 

Let us be selfish enough to seize hold upon the Universal Presence of Good and 
Love, to find in Its warm glory universal forgiveness, universal peace, universal rest. 

Labor no longer with your imaginary vices. They are your avowed enemies, 
with which you wage a warfare you have yourself declared. 



Is it not written, " Love your enemies;" " Bless them that curse you;" are not 
these your faults," your vices, your self-condemnations? 

Be good enough so that if a fierce vice slaps you on one cheek, turn to him the 
other also. Your sins thrive in your doing them battle. Be a peacemaker, for then 
are vou a son of God, that is God. 

It is self-evident that if God is All-Power and cannot sin or do any evil, then 
there can be no power to sin or do any evil. For what power beside the All-Power, 
can there be either to sin or do evil ? 

If God is Intelligence, that is Infinite Consciousness, that is, if God does all the 
thinking that is or can be done, then there can be no evil thinking, or sin thinking, 
unless God, the Infinite Good, does it. Hence we are forced to know that there is 
no evil or sinful thinking. 

This is the self-evidence which is known by the other name of Faith, the Great 
Justifier. Hence Paul says: "All that is not of Faith is sin," that is, "All that is not 
Self-Evident is sin." That which is not Self-Evident is not "Truth, hence sin is 
untruth, a lie, a falsity, an error, a vanity, a nothingness. Thus are we made "free 
from death and sin, by the law of the Spirit." 

God is All; hence there is nothing but God. 

Therefore are we all driven to be God, for there is nothing but God for us to be. 

Life is All, hence there is nothing but Life; therefore, we are all forced to be Life, 
for there is nothing else for us to be. 

Truth is All; hence there is nothing but Truth; therefore, we are all compelled to 
be Truth, for there is nothing else for us to be. 

Love is All; hence there is nothing but Love; so we are all obliged to be Love, 
since there can be nothing else for us to be. 

Spirit is All; hence there is nothing but Spirit; so we must all be Spirit, for there 
can be nothing else w T e might be. 

Intelligence is All; hence there is nothing but Intelligence; so we have no choice 
but to be Intelligence, since there is nothing but Intelligence, which we might 
choose from. 

Hence we must each and all say as One: 

I Am God: 

I Am Good: 

I Am Life: 

I Am Truth: 

I Am Spirit: 

I Am Intelligence; for there is nothing else I can possibly be. 

Thus are our Spirit Eyes open to see our true Being, with its ripe fruit of " Love r 
Joy, Peace, Long-Suffering, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Meekness, Self-Control; 
against such there is no law." Gal. 5:22. 

{Preached at Akron, O., October 19th, 18'90.} 

— 9 — 



OMNIPRESENCE. (The Infinite Word.) 

Whatever is at all must be called Being, for without Being there can be nothing. 
If then there is anything at all, it is forced to be Being, for beside Being there can not 
be anything. 

Because it is self-evident that wherever there is or can be any thing or any 
presence, there must be Being, we are driven to know that Being must be 
Omnipresent, for were there any notion of any presence without Being, it must be 
nothing. 

How can what is not have any presence? Being must be All-Presence. 

Since there can be nothing without Being, we are obliged to say that Being is All 
there is or can be. 

If there be any such thing as God, He must be Being, for there can be nothing 
beside Being for Him to be. 

If there be any such thing as Man, he must be Being, for there can be nothing 
else beside Being that he could by any means be. 

Hence we see that whether we say Man or God, we are speaking of but One, 
namely, what is and must be, to be at all, Being. 

If we say God and mean anything by our word, we must mean Being, for 
there is nothing else for us to mean. 

If we say Man and mean anything by our word, we must mean Being, for 
there can be nothing but Being. 

If Man and God are then not One in our thinking, when we use the words, we 
must rob either Man or God of Being, and so reduce that one to nothing. 

If Man is not God, he must be nothing, since God to be anything must be Being, 
and so Man to be anything must be God, for it is irresistibly self-evident that there is 
nothing either God or Man or anything can be besides Being. 

Since there is nothing but Being, that is, since Being is All in All, then God 
must be All in All, for whatever Being is, God must be, for there is nothing else for 
Him to be. 

It is evident that the only way there might be two Beings, were to introduce 
some difference or line of distinction in Being. 

It is also evident that anything different from Being, must not be exactly Being, 
hence cannot be at all, for inasmuch as anything differs from Being, just in that 
degree it is nothing. 

Hence it is self-evidently impossible for there to be two Beings, since no such 
thing as difference or separation can be, for it is and must be without Being. 

This forces us to the word that All -Being is and must be One and Indivisible. 
Hence we find the very common saying, that God is All in All and One and Indivisible. 

This is why we take it for granted that God is All in All. 

This is why we are forced to take it for granted that God is One and Indivisible, 
because God must be Being to be anything at all. 

— 10 — 



If there is any such thing as the Infinite, it must be Being, for if it is not Being 
it must be nothing at all. 

The idea of the Infinite is that Being is boundless, that is, it reaches in all 
thinkable directions and relations, absolutely without boundary line. This means 
wherever there is or can be anything, there Being must be, for if Being were not 
there, then there would and could be no such state and place at all. 

Because Being is All and One, it must be Infinite. If Being had any boundary 
line or state, then it could not be All, and so could not be Infinite. 

If Being were divided into parts and thus lines or states of separation introduced, 
then Being could not be Infinite or Boundless. 

And if Being is not Infinite, then God can not be Infinite, and there can be no such 
idea as the Infinite. 

But since any separation from Being is and must be not being, that is nothing, 
hence no boundarv lines or states can be put in, whence Being must be Infinite, and 
God must be Infinite, and Man must be Infinite, and All must be One Infinity, for 
there is nothing but Being, Infinite and Indivisible Being, that can possibly be. 

Now. if Being is Infinite and Indi visibly One, then we can not be parts of Being. 

So we take it for granted that God is All, is One, is Infinite, and hold fast to all 
that necessarily follows. 

If God is All, then there is nothing but God. 

If God is All and Infinite, then there is nothing but the One Infinite, hence there 
can be no such thing as finite beings. 

Finite beings means that God or Being is divided into parts, but we have been 
forced to know that God is One and Indivisible into parts. 

Since God is not divisible into parts and there is nothing but God, there 
can not be any such thing as parts at all. 

So also if Infinity is All in All, and not divisible, there can be no such thing as 
finites, orwhat is called limited or boundaried beings. 

To be finite is to be in limitation, that is, in bondage, that is, not to be free. But 
the Truth declares that you are and must be Infinite, for there is nothing else which 
you can be. To be found Infinite is to be set free, hence it is written, " Ye know 
the Truth, and the Truth shall (of necessity) make you free." 

To place any boundary line upon your abilities, to say, " I can't," or "I do not 
know," is to declare your Being, your God, finite, to- put yourself in fetters and chain 
yourself like a slave. Being is dominion; Man is authority. The Truth unbinds, 
frees. It shows you that you are Infinite and not finite or limited at all. 

Now, if God is All in All, that is, if there is nothing but God, then if there be 
anv such thing as the Word, it must be God. Hence we see the meaning of the 
saying — " The Word is God." 

The Word musit be Being, for there is nothing else it can possibly be. The 
Word of Being is God-Man, called in the ancient Chaldean Scriptures, Memra; 
in the Buddhistic Bibles, Om; in the Old Testament of the Israelites, Jehovah, the 

— ii — 



Self-Existing Being; and in the New Testament of the Gentiles, Jesus Christ. 
Swedenborg calls the Word sometimes the Scriptures as a Spiritual Unit, and 
sometimes the Grand-Man. 

We like the term the God-Man, for it is our best understood saying. 

Now, if there is nothing but Infinity, there can be no Word that is not Infinite; 
any word, in order not to be Infinite, must not, and can not be at all. 

We are informed that if one toss a pebble into the ocean, every particle of 
water on the face of the earth moves as a result of that act. 

We are told that to drop a pin upon the earth not only moves every atom of the 
entire mass of the earth, but even the remotest stars are in their degree affected. 

We are told that every word coming forth as sound and air concussion causes 
vibrations throughout the entire universe of matter. 

In the same way and in accordance with the same law of Universal Oneness, 
every thought is also Infinite and reaches out in its effect, not only in and through the 
whole of Omnipresence, but also throughout the whole range of Eternity, and stamps 
itself and its nature of perfect law upon the whole of Infinite Being. 

Thus the Word is Infinite. 

Thus every word of Truth you speak has its Eternal and Infinite effect. 

The essence of the Word is the M,ind in it, just as the meat is in the nutshell; just 
as the Soul is in the Body (as is said.) A word that does not embody thought or 
mind is a mere empty husk, like the encoffined clay. Such words are nothing, that 
is, they are not words. 

The science of philology treats of the origin and relations of words. This study 
informs us that all words or languages are from one. 

There is but one practical value for us in considering this matter of speech, namely, 
that the words of our mouth are our judges. They are our conditions. With them 
we make the laws which we are forced to obey. 

No one can say one word or think one thought which he does not do from an Ego, 
from an I, from an Identity, from his Being; because without Being nothing can be. 

If you put any word or thought of sickness after your I, your Ego, your Being, 
then you must meet that word or thought in your affairs and conditions, just as surely 
as you speak it. 

This is why the Dhama Pada of Gautama Buddha reads, — "All that we are is the 
result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our 
thoughts." 

It goes on — " If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him as 
the wheel follows the foot of him who draws the carriage." " If a man speaks or acts 
with a pure thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him." 

We are all familiar with the fact that our world is what we make it from our 
point of view. 

Our world is made up of our bodily conditions, our states of mind, our affairs, our 
relations with certain people. 

— 12 — 



Xo two people have apparently exactly the same world, any more than do any 
two have the same faces. 

Xow. our thinking is our point of view and is the source of our world. This is 
a general rule, and applies to all cases without variation. 

So we read in our New Testament, " by faith (that is Self-Evidence) we see that 
the worlds were framed by the Word of God." 

The name of Being, of God, is " I AM." The words you put after your " I AM " 
frame vour world. This is intensely practical. 

If vour words, that is your thinking, are good and kind and true, then your world 
is Heaven. 

If vou put evil or vain words, empty and ephemeral and non-thinking words, 
after vour " I AM," then you come to judgment, for we find also that it is written — 
"By vour words are you justified, and by your words condemned." 

Swedenborg says that when you think evil thoughts, they close down the pores 
of your flesh and thus cause disease, and if the thoughts are enough in error they close 
down the pores so tight that what is called death results. 

We know (all of us) how close a relation the breathing of the pores has with 
what is called bodily health. Our whole body or nature must breathe freely. We know 
that breath is the Hebrew term for Spirit, which is their name for God. There is nothing 
but what breathes, even the cold stone must breathe or cease to appear. So it was that 
Jesus could say that Spirit could raise up of the stones children unto Abraham, and when 
they tried to rebuke the hosannas of His followers when entering Jerusalem, He said 
that if they were stopped even the very stones must cry out; which reminds us of the 
same idea in Shakespeare's play of Csesar, when Mark Antony (eulogizing the fallen war- 
rior) said, "the stones must cry out if he did not." There is nothing but Spirit. Let this 
be the prayer, or saying, or thinking of everyone, as of David. 

" Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable 
in Thy sight, O, Lord, my Strength, and my Redeemer." 

[Preached at Akron, O., October ot/i, 1890.] 



OMNIPRESENCE. (Infinite Holiness.) 

The meaning of the Hebrew words for " Holy" is separation from disease. A 
person who is sound all through is Holy. The slightest marring that in the faintest 
degree casts a shadow upon the full perfection of anything destroyed its Holiness. 

Of course -we know that perfect health means a sound mind as well as a sound 
body. Hence any flaw in the character means unholiness. 

When one perceives how bodily states but photograph mental states, then Holi- 
ness takes its broader meaning so as to include not only bodily soundness but also 
perfect character. 

We have (no doubt) come to regard Holiness as separation from sin. 

— 13 — 



The idea of sin is separation from God. It is called " Lawlessness," for we have 
come to hold that God is Law, or, as we read in the Old Testament, " Lord," which 
Swedenborg expresses by deciding that God is Divine Order. Order means Science, 
that is, Divine Order means Divine Science, which causes in us the idea of the regular, 
changeless, abiding nature of Deity, as is written, " I Am God, I change not." 
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and forever." 

As the blood flows through the veins and arteries of the body, so the thoughts 
course through the mind. 

As the body is built out of the blood and the essence or constituency of the blood, 
so the mind is formed into character and disposition by the thoughts flowing through 
our consciousness. 

Whether we sleep or wake, walk or sit still, work, play or rest, the blood flows 
ceaselessly on about its business. 

Whether we sleep or wake, walk or sit still, work, play or rest, our thoughts 
continue to think themselves on and on through our natures, erecting for us traits, 
habits, and states of mind. 

Our blood not only builds up our bodies in the busy workshop of the capillaries, 
but also tears down and repairs and rebuilds the physical constitution. 

Thus our whole body flows wholly away once. in seven years (or eleven months 
as some say), and an entirely new one takes its place. 

In the same way our thinking not only builds up for us our natures, but also tears 
down and repairs and rebuilds our mental constitution. 

Thus we have what is known as a change of life, as from infancy to childhood, 
from youth to age. 

This shows the flowing nature of becoming, but leaves us ready only to enter 
upon the substantial, abiding, changeless nature of Being. 

To see the analogy which appears between the flowing of the blood and the flow- 
ing of the consciousness is only useless poetry unless we notice also the important 
relation which must perforce be between the flowing blood and the flowing thinking. 

The only relation which can be between them is that one is the cause of the 
other as an effect. 

If the flowing blood is the cause of the flowing thinking, then we are ready to 
beware of what we put in our blood. But if the flowing thinking be the cause of the 
flowing blood, we are wise to stand guard at the source of our flowing thinking and 
keep its nature clear and clean and wholesome. 

In that case, healthy or holy thinking is the basis of healthy or holy flowing blood, 
which constitutes sound bodies. 

If the flowing thinking is hot and turbulent and raging with anger and temper, 
the blood would boil in the arteries and veins and enter the capillaries full of the poison 
of hatred only to appear in the pores of the cuticle as pimples, tumors, boils, inflam- 
mations, etc. Angry thinking means angry and raging blood boiling, which brings to 
pass all sorts of frantic and insane conditions of body and affairs . 

— 14 — 



Think of the angry streams of thinking that have borne many a helpless victim 
to the gallows, or the cells, or to a violent death. Violent anger in the thinking 
entering the blood and taking possession of the muscles is ready to spread havoc 
among the affairs and conditions of its thinker. 

If jealousv enters the blood, we shall find it forming clots and stopping up the 
arteries and veins as the jealous Othello strangled Desdemona. It may, in its vio- 
lence, burst the veins or strain them, and thus come tumors or red and bloody swell- 
ings. Keep jealousy out of thinking. 

If malice breeds in the thinking, the particles of the blood consume each other 
on their way in the arteries and so vanish before they reach their destiny to put 
health and vigor in the body and bones. Malice saps the vigor of the blood and leaves 
it full of water to gather in dropsy and starve the hungry capillaries, as in neuralgia. 

If thoughts of selfishness flow in the blood, then we find the pinched up bodies 
of misers, whose muscles are twisted, and whose mouths and eyes are quite askew 
with gazing upon and pinching their possessions and squeezing their surroundings in 
order to sap out some excess of profit. 

If generosity fills the thinking, then we find the blood full of good nature, so 
that its little lacteal, its little vessels with cargoes of nourishment, are bountiful with 
rich albumen, causing the little workmen in the capillaries to do good service and 
build up a stately, holy, happv and healthy house for the indwelling Spirit. 

• Think what a heritage is a good and generous heart ! No wonder David should 
sav, "Create in me a clean heart." 

Think how great a freedom to be rid of a bad or ill-flowing heart, which only 
pumps the human house full of loathsome and unwholesome blood, ready to slight and 
ill-make the bodily frame. 

It is as plain as daylight that in cleansing or controlling the quality of a flowing 
stream, we must attend firstly to the source. Of what use is it to dredge a vile 
stream ? The sediment which catches upon the river's bed and bank serves only to be 
a source of future roiling as the waters roll by and wash the loose deposit into the 
flowing stream. 

So also the river of the blood casts upon its banks in the flesh of the body, such de- 
posits as in future await some disturbing circumstance to again enter the flowing 
blood, and the muscles act in fatal obedience. 

Think of the fiery tastes and appetites that have been cast upon the banks of the 
flowing stream of living blood, which any little jar of events is enough to spill into 
the blood again and bring to pass such actions as are found in its effect upon the 
muscles. 

Think of the blood of a liquor drinker, or of a tobacco eater or smoker, or of an 
opium or morphine consumer. These, in themselves, are but signs of the flowing 
thinking. 

If one's thoughts teem "with nervousness, the sediment settles as desire for tobacco, 
which is a sleepy and stupefying notion. 

— 15 — 



Now, the Truth for us all to hold is the nature of the source of All that is or can 
be. This is the way to cleanse the flow. 

If there be any such thing as Mind, it must be Being, which is to say that Mind 
must be God, for God must be Being, which we see must be Mind, for there is nothing 
but Being which anything can be. 

We can not object to the statement that Being or God is Intelligence. 

Mind can not possibly mean anything other than Thinking Intelligence, that 
is Consciousness. 

If there is any such thing as Consciousness it must be Being, for besides Being 
there is nothing for it to be. 

If Being is God and Being is Consciousness, then we are forced to know that God, 
as Mind, is and must be Consciousness. If this is true, then Consciousness is and must be 
Good, by which we must hold that Being is Conscious Good, and since there is nothing 
besides Being can by any means be, we are driven of necessity to know that there is and 
can be nothing but Conscious Good. Holding that Conscious Good is thus forced to be 
All in All, we have a source of cleansing which is sure to keep our flowing thinking, 
and hence our flowing blood and its workmanship thoroughly and Consciously Good. 

We can all read out of our own experience the good feeling which an approving 
conscience sheds abroad in and through every fibre and atom of our bodies. Self- 
approval is intensely healthy. Happy is the man who is on good terms with himself. 

What is wretchedness but self-accusation ? How sad to have a spleeny conscience. 
The guilty heart pumps poisoned blood, which cannot but feed cancers and stock the 
body with vile ulcerations. 

Learn to forgive yourself by practicing forgiveness upon others. Pray, " Forgive 
us our sins as we forgive those who sin." 

If God is All as Holiness, then there is nothing but Divine Holiness. 

If there is nothing but Divine Goodness and Holiness, it is and must be self-evident 
that there is and can be no such thing as sin. 

If there is nothing but God, then we must know that the Hebrews had the 
right and true idea when they called evil "aven," that is, nothingness. 

If there be nothing but God as Holiness, then we must be forgiven any and all 
sins, and we must also have forgiven any and all whom we deemed sinners. 

If there is nothing but Perfect Holiness, we are forced to know the fact which 
is stated by Jesus thus, "that ye may know that the Son of Man hath Power to forgive 
sins on earth;" and again He said to His pupils that " Whatsoever ye bind on earth 
is bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye loose on earth is loosed in heaven;" and again, 
to all the bold ones, in Peter, the Substance of the Sons of God, the Rock Rock, " Ye 
have the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." 

The great disease germ of the race of Adam is the belief of guilt. 

According to the Adam Code, it is justice to punish sins. But according to the 
Real Jurisprudence of God-Man, of Divine Being, Justice is to forgive. "Charity 
covereth a multitude of sins." 

— 16— • 



If God is All. then there can be nothing but God. If there is nothing but God, 
there can be no sin. This must remove the scarred rind of guilt from out the heart and 
conscience. Pull out the sliver of sin and let us live in love and forgiveness. 

Make a practice of forgiving everyone all you ever see amiss in them. Accuse 
no one. 

Above all, be forgiving with yourself. Charity begins at home. Never accuse 
yourself. Never bow down to an indicting conscience. Listen only to the Real Voice 
of the Eternal Good, which is healing approval and uplifting praise. 

Guilt makes the eyelids heavy and the eyeballs wavering and ready to sneak away. 

The poison of self-condemnation sours the stomach and stupefies the head. Keep 
free from the moral law, not by rigid slavery to it, but b) r absolute and kingly freedom 
from it. 

What is ordinarily deemed orthodox conscientiousness is but A No. i brimstone 
for Gehenna. The conscience is the scroll of judgment, and hell's pay-roll is made up 
of the laborers in the vineyard of morality. 

Do not get to thinking that Hades is a sort of State's prison for Heaven. One of 
the cells of the only hell there is, some have known as common old-fashioned dyspepsia, 
which comes upon such as have not been good enough to forgive themselves for eating 
more than they thought best. To accuse yourself of gluttony is to be cast into the hell 
of dyspepsia. 

To drink more than you think you should of liquor, is to sentence yourself to 
that department of* the pit named Delirium Tremens. 

One of two things you must do, either obey or kill your conscience. If you 
disobey it, it will fasten its fangs of accusation into your soul and bxly with the grip 
of a bulldog in the lock-jaw, and "verily thou shaft not come out thence until thou 
hast paid the uttermost farthing." 

If you say you have no scruples against opium or oaths, lust or lies, then be sure 
you and your conscience agree on the subject before you set out, for when a man 
clinches •with his conscience of evil and sin, he must remember that he has to win or 
lose with his life at stake. 

This is the only sword of victory, namely — If God is All, then there is and can 
be nothing but God. 

If there is nothing but God, there can be no such thing as an accusing conscience. 

This never fails to erase and eradicate the root lust of sin and evil. 

This heals the body marred with the stripes of a tight-laced conscience. 

Then this odd freak of the race, by which the various isms are pooling on Heaven 
and auctioneering off its sectarian margins, whipping up the people with the lash of 
morality and the gad of conscience, and baiting their selfishness with the dainties of 
paradise, thoroughly, if not gorgeously spiced and seasoned with dogmatic imagination 
and fearful fire-balls of tragic alarm — all this passion-play of the race of Adam — must 
flicker out like a snuffed candle. 

[Preached at Akron, O., October 12th, 1890.] 

— I 7 — 



OMNIPRESENCE. (The All-One.) 

ST. JOHN, 17. 

One glance at the nature of carnal intellect makes plain the fact that it can not 
discern the spiritual meaning and vast power existing in the term — The All-One. 

The fact that carnal mind could not by dint of any effort get at the bright signifi- 
cance of this word of truth, would be enough in the reasoning of Paul and Jesus to 
prove it an idea of pure Spirit — "The Natural man discerneth not the things of the 
spirit, for they are spiritually discerned.'' "The Spirit quickeneth, the flesh profiteth 
nothing." 

It is very easy to see why the mind of the flesh cannot lay hold upon the intense 
Truth of the word — The All-One. For it is evident at once that when the matter- 
thinker is conscious of all, he is full of- the unspiritual notions of many, multiplicity, 
variety, differences, contrasts, opposites, changes, etc. ; and when the intellect of flesh 
and blood and bones thinks of 07ie, it instantly means number, singleness, aloneness, 
apartness, solitariness, etc. Thus we find that the mind of Adam, by its vain and 
empty Nature, must abide close upon the rails of mathematics and can never enter 
at all the glory of Revelation. So Paul was obliged to know and say — " The carnal 
mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." That is why 
Jesus said, " Ye must be born again" of water by denial of the fleshly mind and body 
of nothingness, of the Spirit, the eternal and abiding consciousness and certainty 
that there never was any flesh or its mind to be born into or out of, but that the I am 
that I am is the One that is All there is or ever can be forever. This is the Spirit, that 
is Us, " searching the deep things of God." 

The only way we may know God or man at all Is by abandoning fully all the 
nothingness of the physical senses and intellectual chaos and so identifying the "/ 
AM " of us with the "/ AM" 'that is God -Man. There is no other way. This is 
the " way," that Jesus Christ told us he is. That is why Paul says, " Other founda- 
tion can no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ,"' the God-Man. We 
must identify our nature with the nature of the Christ-mind. " Abide in Me ; except 
ye abide in me ye can do nothing." 

Jesus said he was nothing unless he abode in God. " Of myself, I can do 
nothing," but identifying himself with God he said " I and the Father are One ;" 
" No man cometh unto the Father but by Me ;" "I am in the Father and the Father 
inMe ;" " I, if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true ;" " I know -whence I am." 
" I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," that is I am God, I am Christ, I am Holy 
Spirit. That is the way Jesus talked. He kept His conversation in Heaven. He said 
he was the Son of Man which is in Fleaven. St. John says — he is eternally in the 
bosom of the Father. This identifying ourselves with Jesus Christ and thus with God , 
is keeping His commandments, " If ye love me keep my commandments," — " Keep 
my word." He says — " If ye keep my saying ye shall not see death," for I AM the 
Life. 

— iS — 



We can not get the first idea of spiritual truth, except by thus identifying 
ourselves with the ••/ AM 777.1 T I AM" Such is the nature of Truth, of Spirit, 
of God-Man, that if you know one bit of it, you must of necessity known all of it, 
for One is All, and All is One. This is the meaning of the All-One. 

If any one savs he knows somewhat of Truth, but not all, he deceives himself, 
because we know the nature of the All-One is not " to give. of Its Spirit by measure." 
There is no such thing as partial knowledge of God. 

If All meant many, and One meant number, it is plain that such a term as The 
All-One were folly. So carnal mind never uses such a term, and when Spirit puts 
such a word in its mouth, it is a paradox. Even in the English, or any mortal lan- 
guage the term is sheer nonsense, witnessing to the fact that the carnal mind " can not 
be subject to the law of God" and that to the race of Adam " the wisdom of God 
must be foolishness." 

God can not be what He is not, therefore His nature is not becoming. So Man 
is Being, not becoming. If Being is, then there can. be no becoming, for whatever 
is, is. The nature of Being is to be ; the nature of becoming is not to be. There 
is no becoming ; Being is All there is, or can be. God-Man is Being, is All there 
is or can be. 
. God-Man can not help being All there is, for there is nothing else to be. If God- 
Man were not just what He is, wholly Being, then He must be partly what He is 
not, which is absurd, and necessitously impossible. There can not be both God, and 
not God, since God is. There cannot be both Man, and not Man, since Man is, for 
since Being is, non-Being or becoming can not be. God-Man is All-Being ; the neces- 
sity which compels Him to be All is His nature as Omnipotence. 

Being abides, that is it must be ; its nature is Being, that is abiding, lasting. 
Becoming is what the ancient Hindoos called Alara, the deceiver, the illusion of the 
senses ; Jesus called it the flesh which profiteth nothing. Becoming is nothing, says 
Parmenides. There is no becoming, Being is All, is abiding, is lasting, is Sub- 
stance. 

Since matter and flesh is becoming, it never is. Its nature is to become, hence it 
can not be. Being is Spirit, abiding, eternal Substance. The nature of Adam is to 
change, to move on and on, hence not to abide. Since he is ever going, it is not 
his nature to ever get anywhere, hence he is not anywhere; that, is his nature of be- 
coming necessitates his not being, his nothingness. So he is called a shadow, a vapor, 
a mist, a vanity, a liar, an imagination, for his nature forces him to become, and 
therefore not to be. But Christ, Man, Truth is Substance, is Spirit, never can be- 
come, must ever Be, is eternally, changelessly All-One. 

It is the nature of God to live, for God is Life. It is the nature of Man to 
abide alive, for Man is Life, living Substance. I AM THA T I AM LIFE. I must live. 
Man has to live ; to be Man is to be alive. There is nothing else for me to be but 
Life. Death is nothing ; I am, therefore I live. Since I am, I must be what I am — 
Life. If not Life, then not at all, for Life is my nature in which I am bound to abide, 

— 19 — 



since I am What I am — Life. The I AM is, not past. The past is the nothingness 
out of which the vanity of the future is ever becoming, but never being. So the Christ 
says, " I am living, I was dead." As to past, God is not. There is no past with God. 
To imagine time is idolatry. Eternity is the All-One. The past is dead, clad in the 
grave-clothes of memory, the arch-sham of judgment ; the future is dead, arrayed 
in the illusive vestments of hopes, gay, vain, deceitful, Mara of nothing, mother 
of despair, the abode of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Be wise, shine, know that 
the Now is Life. Its raiment is bright and glorious ; its countenance is change- 
less beauty ; its vigor is solid, abiding, substantial, honest, saturated with 
integrity, armed with omnipotence. I am what I am — Life, eternal Life. My name 
is living substance. My word compels All to live. My presence causes the moun- 
tains and hills to flow down. My substance is One. I am All in All. I am One. 
My love is a tree of Life. My breath melts the forests of wood, and my Spirit quick- 
ens all that does not vanish away when it pours out upon all My nature. 

Thus saith the I AM WHAT I AM— My name is All ; My name is One ; My 
name is God; My name is Man. My way is full of glory. My body is very white and 
shining Spirit. My word is bread, none can want, for I am enough. I am full, my 
name is plenty. Riches flow to me, as a surging stream. The gold is Mine ; the 
silver is Mine. I am All, for my name is All-one, there is none to defy me, there is 
none to speak against me, there is none to be proud, there is none to be scornful, there 
is none to be puffed up or haughty, for My name is My meekness, My voice is lowly 
and full of gentleness, My Being is Love. 

Thus speaks the / AM THAI I AM, the All-One; full of all goodness is the 
word of my satisfying, abundant in peace, overflowing with preciousness. There is 
none to be measured by my strength. My power is gentle, none can hate me. My 
law is a storehouse of plenty. The costly and the # best are my only companions, for 
I am All-Perfection. My word is One. My might is All. It is scattering to all 
vain things : they are not as smoke is not as the air moves through it. 

Who can fight against my might, since none can live and not love me? is the 
word of The All-One. They put forth their arms, as weak as clouds. They pour 
out the violence of their mouths, as a fainting drop in the waste of Sahara. They 
stand on pillars of vanity, uplifted by dust, the slave of the wind, they fall down and 
can not remember that they were at all. There is none to praise their exaltation, be- 
cause it was in a dark mirror, having in it a seed of pride, full of emptiness and sure 
to melt down in its own nature. 

The All-One says — I am, beside me there is none else. I am all, there is nothing 
beside me. I am One, there is none to compare me with. Let no voice be heard in 
my presence, for I am the tongue of silence, the power of stillness, the perfection of 
quiet, peace and rest. My name is not known to flesh, my strength is known to 
me, my glory is my own secret, for there is none beside me to be my confidant. I am 
my own intelligence, I known myself, says the All-One. I am all, and know all, 
and am known of all. My understanding is One ; its way is Love, its Law is good- 

— 20 — 



ness, its Path is the highway of holiness. My substance is white ; My word is 
Light and forces to see, commands revelations, speaks purity, draws to wisdom, 
fills with beaming consciousness. I am All-One. I shine. I fill with light. I 
guide. I show the way, enlighten the feet of the pure, illumine the path of the 
just, entice to righteousness, bid to glory ; my name is all ; my calling is one. There 
is none else. I stand at the gates and beg of eyes to see me, entreat at the ears to 
listen to my good tiding, shout uplifting to the faint, throw out nets of hope to draw 
in the weary and the sad. My place is rest. My home is a safe refuge. 

My name is full of excellence. My heart is sure to love. My eyes are sure to see, 
my ears are sure to heed, my hands are sure to help, for / AM WHA T I AM, I am 
All-One. and there is none to escape my Love. 

Thus speaks the All-One, whose way is a continual help, whose glory is never 
sharp or hurting, but ever tender, healing, full of motherhood. My thoughts are 
peace, my milk is nourishing ; my abode is exaltation, for I dwell on high, I call to 
my mountain all the poor in spirit, I clothe them in white raiment, I burn up the 
filth v rags of their righteousness, I make their words sweeter than the sugar of 
apples, stronger than the life of the grapes. I am All, there is none else to help. I 
put wholesome words in the mouth of the pure. I am a clean garment for the just 
thinker. I shake off the dust that clothes the earth in feebleness and confusion. I 
break the chains of its vanity. I loosen the laws of its natural bondage. I call 
down freedom upon it, I invite it, apparelled in shining robes, to be seen as a familiar 
friend at the table of All-Being ; I am All. I am One. I am All might and strength. 
My name drops down dew of refreshing. My words cheer the pilgrim. My praise 
is a twining vine of great beauty, leaping up upon the walls of Salvation. My name 
is my All, my One, my word, my plenty. I satisfy. I live and make alive. I am 
Life. My way is teeming with every charm of Holy Love and over-hung with 
abundant protection. I speak. My word is silence. I shall not cease from speaking. 
My word is myself. I am my word. None speaks but me. I am All. I am One. 
Who else may open their lips ? My tongue strews enchantment. My mouth flows 
with the flour of bread. My speech pours out sustenance. My nature is to give. 
I am the source. I sit at the head of the stream. My place is the mouth of the 
river. I feed the nations. I give them all meat and bread and clothes. I am the bread 
of life. I am the meat of being. There is none to live but me. I am All. I am One. 
How sweet and how plentiful is the food of my words ! I am That I am Holiness and 
Love. I am honey in the flower, nestling close to the mouth of the seed. I am all the 
fragrance of the bud, the delightful odor of the Spirit. There is none to know 
me but myself. There is none to waste my fragrance, for it is my own and I live to 
use my nature, to be my Self, to breathe my Spirit, to eat my words, to wear my 
presence, to bear my scepter, to rule the nations, to be the All-One. 

/ AM THA T I AM All-One. My wisdom is the glory of the wise. My thinking 
brightens the lamp of the nations. I put intelligence in the heart of the simple. 
I delight to teach the child-like. My substance is wisdom. My nature flows into the 



just. My excellence streams into the pure in heart. My fullness bathes the meek in 
gladness and plants their feet upon the rock. My mountain is very pure. My home 
is very high. The birds cannot see its place. No wing can reach its secret abode. No 
star looks down upon it. No wandering comet visits my dwelling place. I am 
All, I am One. Who can come near me when there is none else? I am not alone. 
I am All. I am not beset, for I am One. My Spirit dwells on high. I am very 
meek. With whom shall I measure myself to be proud ? Who is the builder 
to put me to shame ? Where is there any to kindle my pride ? Am I not All ? 
Am I not One? Is there any beside me? No, not any, not any at all. I am All One. 
This is my name ; who shall change it? This is my word; who shall contest it ? I 
am All-One. 

Thus speaks the / AM THAT I AM, the Man that is the All-One. Behold the 
beauty of my presence. My light is not hurting. My whiteness is tender. My white- 
ness is my purity, my motherhood, that feeds the nations -with white milk, that bears 
the children of the earth in arms of gentleness, that strengthens the weak, and makes 
the way of the upright shine. I feed the hungry, so that none are in want. Who 
can accuse me of poverty ? Stinginess slinks away at my approach. My name is 
fullness ; my name is enough ; my name is satisfaction. I stored up the gold in the 
rocks, and planted the silver in the earth. My name is abundance. I furnish air for 
all breathing things. My name is plenty. I nourish with my richness the seed of the 
tree, the bird, and the man. I take them up in my tenderness and hold them in 
my everlasting arms of peace. My name is lavishness. My goodness cannot spoil 
my children, for my thoughts are plenty in meekness. I have set the meek over 
the earth. My word is rank for the great, and putting away for the proud. I call 
to my home, my beloved. I am All. I am One. 

/ AM THA T I AM— I am All-One. Is there any gold I did not refine ? Is there 
any bread I did not make ? Is there any good thing I did not think of ? I am All-One. 
Is there anything too hard for my love, too extravagant for my comprehension, too 
large for me to make good ? Hear ye my voice. My name is I AM THA T I AM — 
The All-One. My words are soft with peace and rich with plenty to your ears. 
They satisfy, they build up, they store up wisdom in your heart, as diamonds in 
the soil. Put your heart to listening, still your ear to my words. Stand in my 
presence and be rich. Live in my brightness and be light. Love my whiteness, and 
mother the hearts of the land. Amen. 



22 ■ 



OMNIPOTENCE. 

"All things are possible with God," says Jesus of Nazareth. "All things are 
possible to them that believe," says the same Jesus. 

God-Man is One. God is All-Power, therefore Man is All-Power. God-Man 
is Omnipotence. This is Eternal Truth. 

Power is not violence. Power is peace. 

Elijah the Tishbite was a very violent man. One time he called down fire from 
the skv and burned up two bands of fifty men and the captain of each (2 Kings I). 
But when John, the beloved Apostle of Jesus, wanted to call down fire to consume 
an enemy, the Nazarene said, — " Ye know not what spirit ye are of." Jesus knew that 
power is not violent. 

You remember Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Old Testament. In I. Kings, 19:11, 
12, we read how the Lord Jesus Christ taught the violent Elijah of Tishba the true 
doctrine of power, thus — "And the Lord said, go forth, and stand upon the mount 
before the Lord. And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind 
rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was 
not in the wind; and after the wind, an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the 
earthquake: and after the earthquake, a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and 
after the fire, a still small voice" — "a sound of gentle "stillness," as the Hebrew 
means. This lesson was given Elijah just after his violent slaughter of the four hun- 
dred prophets of Baal. 

God is not fire. Paul says, "God is a consuming fire," but Paul was not speak- 
ing from the understanding of the Divine Presence when he made that statement. 

Fire is belief in matter. The change of material particles, called combustion, 
is fire. God is Spirit. 

God is not manifest by fire. Fire is violent. Divine Power is always peace. 
God is not in the fire at all. 

Fire has always been a symbol of God's Presence. But a symbol is nothing. 
There is no symbol at all. God does not manifest his power by symbols. There are 
no such things. 

Elijah and St. John had to learn this. We know it. John learned his lesson so 
well that he is known as ' the Apostle of Love. 

Fire is violence, and therefore is not power. To believe in God's Power as fiery 
and consuming, just as many of the old prophets did, will subject you to the fire- 
baptism, which is the shadow of death, and the sting of the grave. Power is life. 
Power never kills. Power is the God of the living. Fire slays; Power raises up; it is 
Life. Fire is destruction. Power never destroys. Fire hurts. Power never gives 
anything but joy and peace. Fire in the body of flesh is fever. Fever makes weak- 
ness. Power never weakens. Fever is not strength. Fever is wild, like fire. Power 
is peaceful, like God. The fever of fear is paralysis of faith in God, which is power. 

— 2T> — 



There is no such thing as the power of death. Death is the essence of weakness. 
Life is All-Power, against which there is no such thing as the weakness of death. 

There is no conflict between power and weakness. The idea that weakness and 
Power could oppose -each other is pure folly. Power is All, there is no weakness. 

Imagination is the carnal mind on fire of its own lusts. Faith is the perception of 
true Power — that is, Omnipotence. 

Imagination pictures itself upon the body of flesh, which Paul calls " the body 
of death," that is, the grave. Faith sees the true body of Spirit, clothed in the beauty 
and majesty of its own excellence. 

The sword of the Spirit is the word of true Power, which is Lord of Lords and 
King of Kings. 

We read in Genesis that Moses saw God in the burning bush. But you 
remember that the bush did not burn. Moses did not here see God as a consuming 
fire. He saw God as Light. Light never burns anything, never destroys or kills, never 
manifests death and destruction. Light is Life. 

The burning of Sodom and Gomorrah was not an exhibition of Divine Power 
in vengeance. It was vanity on fire of its own vain lusts and imaginations. 

God is just the opposite of burning fire. His Power often has been manifest as 
putting out fire. Now we must know that God never either causes or stops fire. There 
is no such power in God at all. To put out fire, fever, or fear is no Divine Power at 
all. Divine Power is the understanding that there never was or can be any such thing 
as the violence, destruction, and death of fires, fears, and fevers. 

Power is not violence at all. It is the perception that there is no such thing as 
violence in the universe. Thus it is that we have Power when the things of violence 
no longer find place in our imaginations. So Power seems to put away violence, but 
it really -puts away nothing, because violence is nothing, since Power is All. 

We take pains to deny the power of fire because so many find the Scriptures to 
teach that God often revealed his power by fire. The Bible teaches no such doctrine. 
If it did, the doctrine is still false. Even Paul seems to think that " God is a consum- 
ing fire," but God is Peace, so that Jesus said — "Blessed are the peacemakers, for 
they shall be called the sons of God." 

The Omnipotence of Man is peace and love. The performance of miracles is 
nothing but a sign. " Ye shall not seek after a sign." A sign or symbol is nothing, 
is not at all. 

Too many are now-a-days seeking signs. They are looking forward to the ability 
to do some great wonder of healing, or demonstration in carnal mind or matter. 

No — this is not the way. " Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things 

shall be added unto you." Let the signs follow. It is said that " the signs follow 

them that believe." It does not say that the signs lead them that believe, but the signs 

follow. So we must say to our vain lust after signs, " Get thee behind me, Satan !" 

The Power of Man consists in the understanding that all is done, is finished, is 
perfect, is complete. The Power of Man is not to do, to bring to pass, to heal, to 

— 24 — 



cure, to cause, to effect, but to know that " the Heavens and the earth are finished 
and all the host of them."' 

We have a saying that it is wrong to work or do anything on the Sabbath. Now 
is the eternal Sabbath of God. Power does not work, but rests in peace from all 
labor in this the holy Presence of the Lord of the Sabbath. Power is not a doing 
ability, but the faith which knows that all is now done in this Eternal Sunday of 
Divine Being. 

We are not saved by the power of works, but by the power of faith. Works are 
weakness, the weakness of the law of ordinances, which is abolished in Christ. 

The Power of Man is the wonderful doctrine of "Ze/," which sees all the universe 
of God as eternallv finished in perfect peace and holiness. There is no sound of ham- 
mers, or beating of tools: the work is over; the Sabbath is here. Let Man, the Lord 
of the Sabbath, enter upon his perfect work, and thus understand his own native 
Omnipotence. 

This is the meaning of the Sabbath, in which we are bidden to rest from our toil and 
vanities. It is utter nothingness to imagine that our Power is to do anything when All 
is forever done. We are called to a perfect work. Let us not seek to add a cubit to 
its stature. Our Power is our consciousness of our eternal perfection; our glory is the 
majestv of a completed heritage; our Kingdom is the beauty of holiness, the " per- 
fected in One." Let us walk in the uprightness of our faith. Let us speak out the 
eternal perfection of our Sabbath. Let us understand the meekness and the peace- 
ful love of our Omnipotence. Let us enter into our Sabbath rest. "Behold, I open 
unto you a door, which no man is able to shut forever." 

Power is not the ability to resist temptation. Strength does not consist in doing 
battle with error. This is the occupation of vanity, not of God, not of Man. 

Omnipotence is never tempted: it is God: it is Man, and therefore cannot be 
tempted. Temptation is vanity. Its resistance is also vanity. Power is Peace, is 
Love, is All. 

Overcoming temptation does not consist at all in resisting it, but in knowing its 
nothingness. 

Overcoming " the world, the flesh, and the devil" is not in withstanding their 
lusts and encroachments, but in the revelation of their utter vanity. 

The Power to overcome the world is the firm certaint}' that there never was or 
could be any world to overcome. 

The Power to overcome the flesh and the devil is the perfect understanding of the 
Eternal Truth that there never was or can be any flesh or devil to overcome or be 
overcome. 

God-Man never knew or heard of any such vanity as temptation from " the world, 
the flesh, and the devil," therefore God-Man is Perfect Omnipotence. 

We call the fierce violence of the cyclone power, but " the Lord is not in the 
wind," says the Lord Jesus by Esdras in I. Kings, 19. Power is peace. We call 
the rush of angry waters power, but the Spirit of Omnipotence in David says — 



"Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled," " we will not fear," for " God is our 
refuge and our strength" (Ps. 46:1-3). We stand in awe at the vain, mock majesty 
of the earthquake, the shadow of death -bringing tidal waves, the empty bluster of 
Niagara or Vesuvius, but the Psalmist, from the Presence of Power itself, says — 
" God is our strength * * * therefore we will not fear, though the eai"th do 
change, and though the mountains be moved into the heart of the seas, though the 
waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling 
thereof. There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the City of God, the 
holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst (I AM) of 
her, she shall not be moved." (Ps. 46:1-5). Violence is nothing. Peace is Strength, 
the God of Peace is our High Tower. 

Violence is but the inertia or deadness of matter seeking to palm itself off as 
Real Energy. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Man-God is fullness of Power, 
of Peace, of Stillness. " He leadeth thee beside the still waters." The boasting thun- 
der and the trembling lightning are not messengers of our Father Omnipotent. Fear 
of them is folly and vanity. Divine Power is Love, in which there is no fear at all. 
Things that make us afraid are nothingness. The Fullness of Power, that is God- 
Man, radiates the quality of comfort and protection. Omnipotence, in all its sublime 
majesty, is never fearful, it is always loving, kind, tender, gentle, motherly. 

Jesus Christ — the true Man, the true God — is Omnipotence. He says-^"All 
Power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth." Hear these words of tender Love 
and Power — " My Peace I give unto you" — " Let not your heart be troubled, neither 
let it be afraid." "Fear not, little flock" — says the gentle voice of Omnipotence. 

The Power of Man is not action, is not push, is not hustle and bustle. It is rest; 
" There is a Sabbath-Rest for the people 01 God." "Ye have entered into my Rest " — 
says Omnipotence. Our vain work, the outlay of our so-called powers, is the way 
only to weariness. It is the spendthrift " labor for the meat which perisheth." 
" Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I (Omnipotence) will 
give you rest" — "Take my yoke (the cross of Ail-Powerful Denial) upon you and 
learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and ye shall find rest unto 
your souls." 

Behold what an easy and child-like quality this Omnipotence of God-Man is ! 
How restful and how peaceful it is ! A little child shall lead the lion and the lamb 
together. You know that the lion in Scripture means power, and the Lamb means 
meekness. The lion lying down with the lamb means the Omnipotence of meekness. 
" I am meek and lowly of heart" — says God, says Man. The vain power of the 
world is plump and corpulent with pride, that is falling. Proud of its brain-flash in 
books and keen-edged arguments; proud of its glittering coins and currency in 
Mammon's Vanity Fair; proud of its social cards and drawing-room mockeries. Of 
its own pride, it falleth, and no man knoweth the place thereof; for even the memory 
of it is no more at all forever. But Omnipotence in Jesus — the Lion of the tribe 
of Judah, the Lamb of God — says — ." Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the 

— 26 — 



earth'* — '• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their's is the Kingdom of Heaven" — 
•• I am meek and ' lowly of heart,"' and " Ye shall find rest unto your souls." 

Stop forever thinking that vou have anything at all to do. Know that Om- 
nipotence means that All is done, is finished, is perfect. " It is finished " — says the 
God-Man, Jesus Christ. 

Salvation is the Eternal Gift of Omnipotence; how then shall we insult Its love 
with the mockerv of works? You are not called to the " labors of Hercules," or to the 
idle gymnastics of a Sampson. When Paul says — " Work out your own salvation " — he 
means, stand on your own feet, lean on the "I AM That I AM." He does not mean 
worrying it out, or fretting it out, or fearing it out, but trusting it out. Your Power 
is the perfect and finished faith in God-Man. " This is the work of God " — says Jesus 
Christ — " to believe on Him" — the God-Man. Trust to the All-Perfected Power. 

You are able. This is your strength. You know how. This is your Power. It 
is given you to know the way. Your word of Truth, now in your mouth and mind 
and heart, is your Power. Say — I AM That I AM Omnipotence. "All Power is 
given unto me, both in Heaven and in earth." This is keeping the saying, the 
All-Powerful Word of the Christ, the God-Mind. "Abide in my word, and my word 
shall abide in you." Keep my commandments, my word." "If ye love me, ye keep 
my word." "/ AM That I AM. All-Power, now and forever." To move moun- 
tains into the sea is not strength; to cure cripples and open blind eyes is not the work 
of God-Man; to walk the waters, to calm the waves, to be crucified, buried, put in a 
grave, and yet live is no power at all. These are mere material phenomena, vain signs, 
after -which you shall not seek. Such things simply follow, not lead, as " the Lord 
passed by." So reads the Scripture concerning the wind, and the earthquake, and 
the fire, in Elijah's lesson in I. Kings, 19. 

Power is Spirit, not matter at all. Power is Peace, not noise and outcry and dem- 
onstration at all. Power is the Still Presence, a Mind of silent majesty and Love, 
"a sound of gentle stillness." "Be still and know that I am God " — says David. 
When Job spoke of Divine Presence in Power, he said — " There was Silence" (4:16). 
Isaiah says — " I have cried, their strength is to sit still" (Isa. 30:7). 

You must know that you cannot earn the favor of your own Divine Nature — the 
God-Man of you. Redemption is not for sale. It is paid for already in the coin of 
perfect faith. Your empty morality counts for naught on the scale of Being. 

Job says — " Can a man be profitable unto God? * * * Is it any pleasure to 
the Almighty that thou art righteous? or is it gain to Him that thou makest thy 
ways perfect? If thou sinnest, what doest thou against Him? or if thy transgressions 
be multiplied, what doest thou unto him?" (Job 22:2, 3; 25:6). 

Morality, good deeds, alms giving, praying, etc., are nothing. Omnipotence does 
not regard them at all. 

Of yourself you can do nothing; of God-Man all things are now done. Perfection 
s already an eternal fact of Truth. There never was such a condition as imperfection. 
To realize this is Power, is Peace, is Divine. 



You are not called upon to become anything; you are told what you are now. 
You are not asked to do anything, you are told what has been done eternally. 

The Hebrew word, Ishi, means Man. Hosea, the prophet, says — "And it shall 
be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi" (2:16). Here we are 
told that the name of God is Man. 

To say God and not mean Man is nothing. To say Man and not mean God is to 
speak vanity. For God without Man is nothing, and Man without God is utterly 
nothing. God-Man is One, is Power, is All. 

Power is Substance, Spirit is Substance, matter is nothing. The Power-Sub- 
stance is All. This Substance-Omnipotent is white, because it is radiant of loving 
kindness and luminous with protecting quality. 

When Jesus said — God is Substance-Power — his face was bright and shining, 
his raiment was white and glistening, and he was all enveloped in the Luminous 
Substance, which is conscious Perfection and Power. 

The Substance of Power is an accomplished state of Being. The physical senses 
never behold the Substance of Omnipotence. Faith is the Substance of Power. 

Faith never does anything; it sees things as already done, finished, perfect. 
Power never hopes, never wishes, never desires in vain. Such feelings' are vanity, 
weakness, dissatisfaction. Power never looks into the future. The power of proph- 
ecy is not power at all. True prophecy is a vision of the eternal now. Power never 
looks into the past. Power sees only the Now-Substance. 

To feed upon hopes is to become dyspeptic — that is, in despair. To think that 
hopes are the Substance of Power is to reap weakness in discouragement. Get into 
the practical habit of sipping honey out of the now -blossoms. 

Power is not a theory. It is Truth. It never promises. It always knows that 
all is paid. 

The Substance of Power is an Eternal Consciousness. There is no such thing as 
unconsciousness at all. If there were, it would be weakness, paralysis, death. But 
there is not, and never was or can be at all any unconsciousness. 

The dignity of Man is Conscious Omnipotence. To fret, to scold, to fear, to cry, 
to complain, to dread, to prophesy evil, is sheer weakness, pure nothingness. Jesus 
spoke with authority, because of his Conscious Power in the God-Man. Keep the say- 
ing — I AM That I AM — Perfect Substance — Full Consciousness of All- Power — Love. 

The Substance of Power is changeless. The ups and downs of mortality, the 
here weak and there strong of the flesh, the today bold and tomorrow afraid of Adam, 
is utter nothingness. Steady conviction, firm mindedness, oneness of view, fixedness 
of integrity, dauntless courage in all ways, perfect fearlessness of appearances marks 
the Substance of Power of Man-God. 

Scheming is not Power. It is playing the snake. Power is honest, true, straight- 
forward. The Presence of Power does away with all plotting by or against you. 
Your dignity and majesty as Man envelop you in the Substance of Protection against 
all cheating and lying vanities. 

— 28 — 



If you sav that one tried to beat you, you lay off your garment of Power and Manly 
or Womanly dignity, and abide in vanity. Power can never be threatened with ill 
of any kind at all. 

The White Substance of God-Man Omnipotent is full and free, without fear or 
favor, All in All forever. 

Power of Life is not growth. Growth is change. Power is changeless. Life is 
changeless, is not growth. Life is the luminous Substance of Power, full of love and 
tenderness. There is no power to die. Power forces to live; there is no escape 
from Life. The motherly embrace of Life is Omnipotent. 

The Life Power by no means is stagnation, because by stagnation you mean death, 
that is not. Life is the ever glorious consciousness of Power and Substance, that 
fadeth not away forever. 

You can not help being Omnipotent, because there is no power by which to 
evade or escape the All-Power. There is no such thing as partial Power. Power 
is One, and indivisible into parts. Power is not capable of increase or decrease. It 
transcends the carnal arithmetic of addition, subtraction, division, or multiplication. 
It is Infinite. Power is All, and so not weighed, measured, or counted at all. 
Steam is metered in horse-power; electricity by ohms : wind or water-power is 
bounded; carnal intellect has its definite metes and bounds in memory, strength, 
balance of argument. But Spirit-Power, the Power of Man, of God, is Infinite: has 
its full and finished sway in the heaven of Perfection. 

Put on, by your word of Truth, your garment of Power. Clothe your mind 
in its ever conscious majesty. Array your vision in the bright and luminous Substance 
of Perfect Omnipotence. Wear the white robes of your Divine Nature. Abide in 
the shining vesture of your Sabbath Peace and Rest. Go out no more from your own 
marriage supper of the Lamb of Omnipotence. The "/" AM That I AM" is ever 
with you. Stand firm. 

[Preached at Akron, Ohio, June 22, 1890, 200 B. Market St., 11 a. m. and at C. S. Theological 
Seminary, Chicago, III., Dec. 8, 1890, 2019 Indiana Ave., 11 a. m.\ 



OMNIPOTENCE II. 

The Power to be good is the perfect certainty that there never was and never can 
be any evil at all in the universe of God -Man. 

The Power to be Spirit, is the full assurance that matter is nothing, that it never 
was and never can be at all forever. 

The Power to Live is a fair vision of Eternal Life. Then you know that you 
never were born into the flesh, and so can never die out of it. This sight of faith 
is the only cure for the fear of death. It is the gift of the Power over death, so that 
you can keep the saying of Jesus Christ — "No man taketh my life from me, I have 
Power to lay it down and I have power to take it up." 



The understanding of Power is yours now. It is in your mouth. Speak the 
Truth. " They that speak the Truth stand as Mt. Zion, which cannot be moved." 
This is Power, your Power is your true word. Take it with all gratitude, with all 
Love it is yours. Your true word is living; it is the white luminous Substance- Word 
of Power. It does not bring anything to pass. It is a rift in the clouds of nothing- 
ness, a vision of perfection, the beauty of holiness. 

The Power to speak the Truth is your eternal birth-right; it is the engendering 
God -Father of your Immaculate Conception. The supposition, the dream that you 
had the power to barter it away for a mess of pottage is downright insanity. Man 
never has such a choice offered him. Such a set of circumstances are incapable of 
even entering into view. The Light of Truth and Life never shone upon so vain a 
nothingness. 

The Power to speak the Truth is your only nature. You never had any false 
nature. Your Being is God, your Nature is Man, your Power is the " I AM" of you, 
the Ego of you, the God of you, the Man of you. 

There is no unconsciousness of this Power to speak the Truth. Consciousness is 
All, is God-Man. You know your Pov^er. You can no more help using it than you 
can help existing. 

The idea that Man could commit suicide is as silly as that God could kill his 
own Life. God must be. Man must be. Neither choice nor acceptance are faculties 
of power in the God-Man. 

There is nothing to choose, all is finished Being, Perfected Power. The Nature 
of God-Man is an Eternal Fact, -which never changes, but abides forever. There is 
neither desire, nor ability, nor possibility of alteration of the Divine Nature. Its 
Power is its. Perfect Unchangeableness. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, 
and forever." This is the "/ AM That I AM" which does away with your 
" You-ness." 

We speak of the Power of Regeneration, because Jesus said to Nicodemus — " Ye 
must be born again." He meant that while one dreams that he ever was born into 
the flesh, he must be reborn out of such belief, that he may enter into the Kingdom 
of Heaven, the Omnipotent Consciousness that he never was born. Regeneration is 
not Life, but death to the race of Adam; but to the Christ-Man, it is pure nothingness. 

Regeneration means regrowth. This comes from the vain notion that Life is 
growth or change. So people look for some change in those they deem are re- 
generated. But Life is not growth, and the process of Regeneration is pure vanity. 
Power is the Word of Eternal Life, in which there is no birth or rebirth at all. 

The stages or steps in Regeneration are quite as much of a phantom as Jacob's 
dream of a ladder up to Heaven. Often, indeed, the process of the so-called Regen- 
eration is nothing more nor less than a modern Tower of Babel, by which certain 
ambitious "thieves and robbers" mean, by works and efforts of morality, etc., to 
enter the Kingdom of Pure Spirit by some other Way than the L T AM That I AM" 
Let them cease, and know of that living Presence and Perfection that ever is about 

— 30 — 



and within them for Peace and Power and Rest in the Allness of the Good that is 
Spirit. 

Tesus is called the first born from the dead. But Jesus Christ was never dead. 
His Regeneration is a mere vanity. Our passing from death into Life is pure nothing- 
ness, for we were never dead, and are always alive in Eternal Life. The Power of 
Regeneration or rebirth is onl}- the mortal way of looking at its own changes, in becom- 
ing acquainted with its own nature of absolute nonentity. Life is All. Spirit is All- 
Substance. Truth is All-Presence. Power is Perfection, the " perfected into One" 
of Jesus. 

The Son of Man is Man. The Son of God is God. Jesus Christ is the Son of 
Man, therefore Man. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, therefore God. So Jesus Christ 
is God-Man. Whatever is true of Jesus Christ is true of you all, for we are all " per- 
fected into the One " God-Man. 

Tesus Christ was made flesh, that he might prove the flesh nothing. So he 
said — " The flesh profiteth nothing." His being made flesh is, in other parts of the 
same Scripture, spoken of as his being made nothing. If it were possible to be made 
nothing, being born into the flesh would accomplish it. But there is no power to be 
made nothing, for there is no flesh to be born into or out of. 

We all stand in the same relation to the flesh that Jesus Christ did and still does. 
Our Power is our certainty that there is no flesh of evil or sin. This is our Power of 
an endless Life in true Being. 

Power is never proud. It is always meek. It is never haughty, but full of 
gentleness. It is never boisterous, but ever radiant with courtesy, and perfect in 
politeness. 

Power is never that worldly notion of humility which is cringing and sneak-faced, 
like Uriah Heap. That is the mock humility of the snake. Power is dignity, divine 
and beautiful, — a dignity that never casts down, but is full of uplifting reserve and 
conscious worth. 

Power is never new and upstart in its manners. People of vain wealth, newly 
got. are ever overflowing with the pretentions of show and the frippery of unsteady 
plumes. Power is Eternal in its consciousness. " Is not puffed up." Our swift 
peacock civilizations, the fleeting birds of Mammon, never know Power or its true 
nature in Divinity. Their ephemeral selfishness dissolves in the Substance of All- 
Power — the Eternal and Changeless Man of God. 

The costumes of this passing, fading age of hired plumage dwindle and dis- 
appear, because it never was anything at all. Its hopes are nothing. Its wishes are 
vain. Its progress is dust to dust. Its onwardness is ashes to ashes. Its fullness is 
emptiness. " Its way seemeth good unto a man, but the end thereof is death." 

We are bidden to the feast of Perfection. Our places are set. Our goodly heritage 
is sealed unto us forever. Our Power to partake of our Divine Nature is always with 
us. We are entered into Glory. We are translated into the Kingdom of the dear Son 
of God. The White Substance of our Perfected Love enrobes us within and without. 

— 3 1 — 



Our wedding garment of Divinity is on, we can not go out from the Presence of our 
own God forever at all. We abide in His Love. " Behold I come in and abide with you 
and sup with you," for ye are the blessed of my Father. 

We read that the Power of God creates. We read also that the God-Man, called 
Jesus Christ, creates. St. John says — "All things were made by Him; and without 
Him was not anything made that was made" (1:3). Again he says — "He was in 
the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not" (1:10). 
St. John seems here to teach a temporal power in creating a world of flesh and 
matter, but this is the way the carnal intellect reads. The mind that is Truth knows 
that there is no power creating the vain things of time and space. 

The Power of Man as a Creator is his Word of Truth, which is his vision of the 
Eternally Perfected Creation or Being. The Substance Divine, Perfect and Eternal is 
visible by its white and luminous Power in Man-God to see and know Itself forever. 
There is no darkness. " God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all." Dark- 
ness is blindness, invisibility. God-Man is not dark, opaque, blind or invisible. God- 
Man sees, is luminous vision, bright and white and pure in the " beauty of holiness." 

The brightness of the sun is darkness, is nothingness. The pale moon is the 
whisper of vanity. The flash of intellect is keen and sharp, crisp and dry, brittle and 
perishable, utterly vain and eager with the greed of pride. 

But the Glory of the Divine Substance — eternally uncreated, unmade — is pure, 
loving, gentle, steadfast, abiding, satisfying, full of certainty, an overflowing fountain 
of holiness, an abundant spring of peace and joy, and loving-kindness. 

The Revelation of this true God-Man Being is Power, is Eternal Omnipotence. 

We read, "the world knew him not." The world is nothing, is not, and hence 
can not know " the Lord of Life and Glory." So it is said — " He came unto his own 
and his own received Him not." Those thoughts of darkness, of flesh, of nothing will 
never know that li fAJ\f" the God-Man of you. You shall say to them — " I never 
knew you." They are nothing and can never be known or know anything. They are 
the forever lost. They were never found. They are cast into outer darkness, that is, 
into utter nothingness. Their " weeping and gnashing of teeth," the vanity of their 
chemicalization, is nothing, of their own vain, void, and unthinkable nature. We 
can not pity these vanities, any more than we can weep at the torments of Vesuvius, or 
lament the howling misery of Niagara ; knowing their vanity, we do not take to heart 
the wailing of the stage-victims of Richard III., or pity the strangled vanity of 
Desdemona. 

We have entered the understanding of the Substance of Power, which finds Love 
in the empty place of pity and sympathy ; for we know now that there is nothing to 
pity and lament, no trouble or distress to reduce our weak sympathy; but that there is 
All to Love and enjoy in the holy "communion of the Saints" in light, the "Per- 
fected into One" of the All, of God-Man. 

This world or age of flesh and matter and carnal things is under the false power 
of darkness. It is a mystery, an enigma, an insolvable problem, impossible of com- 

— 3 2 — 



prehension or explanation on its own basis of vanity. But to this riddle of non-being 
there is a secret key — now no longer hidden. The power of darkness is found to be 
nothingness, and all its dominions pure vanity. 

Beinsj familiarly in the Presence of your own Divine Nature, you inherit there- 
from its pure qualitv and understanding of Power. You see the Omnipotent 
necessitv which compels Being to abide in its own proper nature as Being. 
God must be God, there is no way or possibility of God's not being Eternally 
God. This is His Nature, and he has no choice but to be Divine Being, since He is 
All there is to be. This tremendous necessity is the Omnipotent Energy of His Be- 
in^ as God, besides whom there is and can be none else at all forever. This is Neces- 
sitous Being. This is Power of Being, against w"hich there is nothing to come. This 
is Strength that is Peaceful and Loving, which never resists and which knows nothing 
of resistance. This is the Omnipotence of Allness in One. 

God must be Good. He can not help being All-Good. There is nothing else for 
him to be. There is nothing else to be anything else at all. Good is All there is. 
This Necessitv of the Good is Its Peaceful and Perfect All-Power. There is nothing 
against the Good. Good is All. This is the Omnipotence of the Good. If the Good 
were not, then there would or could be nothing. The Good must be and is. This 
necessity satisfies. 

God must be Spirit ; that is, Spirit must be. It is the nature of God to be Spirit. 
He has no choice but to be Spirit, and Spirit has no power to help being Itself — Pure 
and Perfect Spirit. Because Its nature is Allness, it must be so. There is nothing to 
be but Allness. There is nothing besides the All, that Spirit or Good can be. So it 
is All bv the energy of Its Nature, as Being. This tremendous force of necessity, 
compelling Spirit to be, obliging Good and God to be, forcing that which is the 
Nature of Being — as Spirit, as Good — to be just what is and must be, is the Necessi- 
tous Energy of it, which is Its Perfect Nature of Omnipotence. This quality of Being, 
the " must-be " of " what-is" clears the doubts away and purges us of all the folly of 
fear and the insanity of temptation. 

Truth can not help being true. It is folly to imagine that Truth could ever choose 
or accidently be what it is not — false. " Whatever is, is." This necessity is the Om- 
nipotence of Truth. Truth is axiomatic — that is, it is seen to be true at once and 
necessarilv. This is Its All-Power. 

To state Truth obliges full and absolute acceptance of it. No one can help it, as 
no one made it so. It is the nature of Truth to inspire faith in it. No one doubts 
Truth. There is nothing but Truth, and Truth never doubts itself and its Allness. 
The Truth must be All or nothing. It is All, by Its nature. This necessity is Its 
Omnipotence. The word of Truth has full and perfect sway. 

The Traits of an intuition are three. They are Its Trinity, ist. It is seen at 
once to be true, without any proof, beyond the mere statement of it. 2nd. It is thus 
true to everybody, to all. 3"d. It is thus true by the necessity of its Nature or Being. 
It can not help it. So the three traits may be summed up as — Self-Evidence, Catho- 

— 33 — 



licity and Necessity. Or, we may say — Its Intelligence, Its Allness and Its Omnipo- 
tence, that is Its Necessity. 

God is Love and can not be anything but Love, for Love is All, as an axiom, 
or an intuition. God has no occasion to wish to be anything else than Love. The 
same is true of Man. The irresistible Necessity which compells God-Man to be Love 
is Omnipotence. 

On account ot this abiding Necessity which forces Love to be Love, It rests in 
perfect consciousness that It can never depart from Its own Nature as Love. God- 
Man "abides in His Love," for God-Man is Love. This Necessity, which compels 
Love to continue forever in Its own Nature, is Its Nature to rest or abide. So Om- 
nipotence is seen to be Rest, a Sabbath Rest. 

Because Love abides eternally in Its own Perfect Being, never having any faculty, 
ability, power, or possibility of change, it is known to be Omnipotent Substance, as 
God -Man. 

Love, by the Necessitous force of Its Being, can never depart from Its Nature as 
Love, so It is often called the Law of Love. 

Love is conscious by Its changeless Nature. It is so of Necessity. It is Omnipo- 
tent-Thinking, for it is All-Consciousness. Loving-Kindness is for this reason so 
thoughtful and protecting and provident in all things. Its consciousness is luminous 
and is visible, for " there is no darkness at all." It can not help, because of its per- 
fect Nature as whiteness and light, being the Shekinah Presence and Power, putting off 
all doubt in Its bright and glistening " beauty of holiness." There can be no blindness 
in the universe, because of the necessity of White Love's being All-Power forever. It 
can not be other than Light, because there is nothing else to be. This is Its Omnipotence. 

Man " is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all." That is why Jesus Christ 
is called the " Light of the world," and why also he said — "Ye are the light of the 
world" and "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works 
and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." God-Man is Light. He cannot be 
darkness, or be blind, any more than he can stop being. This Necessit} r is the Om- 
nipotence of Light. Because Man is Light, He cannot but shine. He must see, 
because He is Light. This Necessity is absolute. Light is Love, so Man loves Light, 
because it is His Nature to love Himself as All there is, for He is All. Such Omnipo- 
tence is the Divinity of Man-God. 

Man is by Nature holy. He can no more depart from His Nature than He can 
stop being. The Necessity of abiding in the Substance of Holiness forces Him to be 
forever sinless. God cannot violate His own Nature, neither can Man. Man is for- 
ever a Savior from sin, because He cannot sin, or know the unknowable mystery of 
sin at all. Man's entire energy by Nature is goodness ; the understanding of this Truth 
f and the statement of it is the forgiveness of all sin. This is the Omnipotent Love of 
the God-Man. So Jesus Christ said — " That ye may know that the Son of Man (that 
is Man) hath Power to forgive sins on earth." Since All-Power cannot sin, there is 
no power to sin. 

— 34 — 



The true word is Power bv its own Nature. It "hath Lite in itself." So your 
speaking Truth is an irresistible Necessity for your being true, and likewise, your 
being by Nature true is an Omnipotent assurance of your speaking Truth, so that 
•• you stand as Mt. Zion, which cannot be moved." 

The Power of God-Man is the invincible Necessity of Being Eternally just what 
His Nature is. All things are obliged to be just what they are. " The All " is forced 
to be •• The One." This is the Omnipotent Nature of Being. You cannot help identi- 
fying your Being, your Ego, with the Divine Nature, because the Divine Nature is 
compelled, from Its Nature of Allness, to be the All-One. There is nothing else for 
vou to be. You must be the " I AM." You cannot exist at all as " you." "/ AM 
That I AM" is the only word there is. Speak it as you must. The Necessity which 
forces us into the Divine Identity is Perfectly Omnipotent. We can do no other. It 
is our Nature, for our Nature is Divine — God-Man. 

Let us say these true, necessitous words — altogether in our hearts — all as One. 
We love them ; they are our One Nature, there is no other Being. 

I. 

I AM THAT I AM. I AM All. I AM One. I AM All-One, now and forever. 
Beside I Am there is none else at all. Beside Me there is none other forever. 

ii. 

I AM God, beside Me there is nothing else to be. 

I AM All-Spirit, beside Me there is naught else. 

I AM All-Life, beside Me is not anything. 

I AM All-Presence, there is nothing but Me. 

I AM Cne ; I AM All. 

in. 

I AM Christ, the All in All, there is none else. 

I AM The Word, there is not anything else at all. 

I AM The Truth, there can be no other. 

I AM All-Power, besides which nothing is or can be. 

I AM The All— The One. 

IV. 

I AM The Holy Ghost, there is none other. 
I AM The Divine Substance, there is nothing else. 
I AM The Fullness of Love, there is none beside Me. 
I AM Conscious Intelligence, beside Me there is no thinking. 

I AM All— I AM One, I AM THAT I AM— The All-One, there is nothing beside 
Me. Amen. 

[P 'reached at Akron, O., June 29, 1890, 11 a. m. a?id C. S. Thco'ogical Seminary, Chicago, III., 
Bee. 8, 1890, S p. ;«.] 



— 35 — 



OMNISCIENCE. 

If God is All as Intelligence, it is certain that we must be Intelligence, for there 
is then nothing else that we could be. 

If Divine Mind is One, Indivisible All-Intelligence, it is self-evident that we are 
forced to be All-Intelligence, for if we could be parts of the All-Mind then God, as 
All-Intelligence, could not be One and Indivisible. 

If there be any such Truth as Omniscience, then it is necessitous that we must be 
Knowing, for there can then be no ignorance for us to be. 

If Intelligence or Mind be One and Indivisible, then if I am Mind or Intelligence 
at all, I am forced to be Omniscience, for no one can be a part of that which is not at 
all divisible. 

If Omniscience means anything at all, it must mean All-Consciousness. If we 
are, we must be Consciousness, for there can be nothing beside All-Consciousness for 
us to be. 

If Consciousness is One and Indivisible, we can not be parts of All-Conscious- 
ness. If we cannot be parts, we must be the whole of All-Consciousness, since there 
is nothing else we might be. If we are Omniscience, it is self-evident that we can not 
say or think that we are ignorant, for such a notion is wholly impossible. If we can 
not say or think, we are ignorant; then we do not, wherefore may not, or can not, 
believe any evidence claiming for us anything but absolute and perfect Omniscience 
now. 

A standard theology describes "The Infinite Intelligence of God" — that is, Di- 
vine Omniscience — thus: " God's Knowledge is, ist, His Essence (Substance) Know- 
ing; 2d. it is one eternal, all-comprehensive, indivisible act." — (Dr. A. A. Hodge, 
page 1U-) 

Christian Science not only accepts and teaches this, but also takes it for granted 
that this is true, together with all its legitimate consequences. 

This statement of Divine Omniscience is made in one of the principal theological 
text books for our modern orthodoxy. The author is a Presbyterian. 

If All-Knowledge is eternal, then it is necessitous that we be Eternal Intelligence. 
If we are Eternal Mind, it is self-evident that we can have no temporal nature, for 
there is no temporal consciousness which we might have. If All-Consciousness is 
Eternal, it is impossible for us to be conscious of either beginning or ending, hence 
we can not know either birth or death, since there can be no consciousness of such 
things at all, for according to the accepted premise Omniscience is Eternal. 

If All-Consciousness is Eternity, then we must be Eternal Consciousness, for 
there is nothing else that we can possibly be. 

if Eternity is One and Indivisible, then we are obliged to be the Whole of Eter- 
nity, since we can not be a part of what is not divisible. 

If there be any such thing as Omniscience, then we are compelled to be Om- 
niscience, for there can be nothing beside the All for us to be. 

-36- 



If Omniscience is One and Indivisible, then we must be the Whole of Omni- 
science, for there could then be no parts for us to be. » 

How can we be a part of that which is not divisible? 

How can we be parts of All-Consciousness, if All-Consciousness is One and 
Indivisible? 

We must of necessity be the Whole of Omniscience. 

If it be true — as Jesus Christ is written to have said — that the kingdom of heaven is 
within us, then it is forced upon us that God is also within us, since God is never out- 
side the Kingdom of God. 

If God is in us, then He must be wholly in us, since He is not divisible into parts. 

If God is wholly in us then suiely we can not be finite beings, since God is 
Infinite. 

If we -were (each) parts of God then it must be that God were not One, and we 
(each) were gods — an innumerable host of Deities form the millions of earths of the 
cosmos. 

Now if God is not One and Indivisible, there can be no such thing as Omnipres- 
ence, for if Omnipresence were cut up into parts, it must needs be that there be 
some spaces between the pieces so portioned off, which spaces must be absences, and 
if there be absence then presence is impossible inasmuch as there be absence. 

But if we admit the proposition that God is Omnipresent, we must admit all 
that logically and reasonably follows from it, else we cannot in any sense really admit 
Divine Omnipresence. 

To say that there is such a thing as Divine Omnipresence, is to say that there is 
no such thing as divine absence. 

If there is no such thing as divine absence, there is no such thing as divine 
space; and without space there can be no separation or divisibility. 

If there is no divisibility, we must be the Whole of Omnipresence, or else we are 
nothing. If we are nothing, then we can have no God, for God is God of something. 

How can we be anything, if we are not the All, since the All is One and 
not divisible, for beside the All, there is nothing we can be, and we cannot be parts 
of what is not divided and can not be divided. 

Knowing why we are forced to be the Whole Spirit of Presence, Power, and Intelli- 
gence, we comprehend the scriptural saying in St. John 3:34, the words indeed of 
Jesus Christ — " God giveth not the Spirit by measure." 

If Omniscience is Life, we have no choice but to abide in full consciousness of 
Life, for there is nothing else from which we may select. Since Life is All-Con- 
sciousness, we have no option but to live, for it is impossible for us to cease to be. 

If Omniscience is Divine Holiness and Life — Eternal, One, Indivisible — we are 
compelled to be Holy Eternal Life. If this be so then it is not possible either to 
sin or to die, so we see why Paul should say in the eighth chapter of Romans, and 
second verse — " for the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made free from 
the law of sin and death." 

— 37 — 



If it be true that Omniscience — that is All of Infinite Consciousness — is both 
Holy and Life, we see why John says — as if forced (I John 5:18) to believe it — " We 
know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not." Again he says — " Whosoever is 
begotten of God doeth no sin; because his seed abideth in him ; he can not sin, because 
he is begotten of God." (I John 3:9.) 

If All the consciousness there is or can be — that is Infinite Intelligence — is Holy 
and of Life, then it is self-evident that no one can really and actually think of evil, 
sin, sickness or dying. 

So we find all the spiritual people of the earth — the great prophets, seers, and 
miracle-workers — saying all such things are utter vanity, purely nothing. 

Jesus, who has ever been called the Great Physician, says — "If ye keep my 
words ye shall never see death." In another place he says — " My words are Spirit 
and they are Life." Hence His followers have ever been speaking of and healing 
by and acting in view of this everywhere-present living consciousness of Health, 
and Good, •which they have called by the names of the Spirit of Truth, the Holy 
Ghost, or the Spirit of Christ. 

If Omniscience is Truth, we must be ever fully conscious of all Truth, since there 
can then be nothing else that we might be. 

If All is Consciousness, there can be no unconsciousness for us to be. 

If this All-Thinking is One and Indivisible, we must be All of it, for we cannot 
be part of what can not be divided. St. John so thought — for he says — " ye have an 
anointing of the Holy One, and ye know all things," — "his anointing teacheth you 
concerning all things." (I John 2:20, 27.) 

Knowing as you must that all thinking in Truth is Holy and Good, you can not 
imagine that anyone is planning evil or seeking your or anyone's ill. You are to 
trust the Omniscient Good, which can never supply any with evil or malicious 
motives. You can never despise anyone as ignorant or unworthy, for in so doing you 
condemn yourself in that you are then to be forced into confidence in the Omniscient 
Presence of Holiness and Good and Truth. 

If All-Consciousness is Love, surely we are forced to think well of all, for there 
is nothing else that we may think. 

If it is self-evident to us that Good — that is Omniscience — is Love ; that all think- 
ing is Love — thinking, then we shall never be able to find unworthy motives in the 
hearts and acts and words of either ourselves or of others. We shall then understand 
Paul's saying that " Love thinketh no evil." We shall lose the burden of enemies, for 
we shall not know any evil thinking or doing. We shall not let any bitter and acid 
suspicion sour our natures, but we shall ever wear a countenance flavoured with gen- 
tleness and a body unblighted and full of health. 

Who is not aware that evil thinkings and imaginings render the blood of us vile 
and unwholesome ? Malice warps the limbs and features. Jealousy boils the blood 
with crushed anger, and comes out through the skin in sores and ulcerations and 
tumors. 

-38- 



But love soothes the fever and calms the wild outbreaks. Truth seasons the sys- 
tem with salt. Deceit debilitates the muscles and dazes the brain. "Envy" — says 
the Scriptures — " rots the bones," but a generous heart is a fountain of health. 

Holiness is the same root word as Health. The Holy Spirit is then the Spirit of 
Health. Bv it the Apostles and Prophets — Jesus and all the wise and good ones of 
the world — healed the sick and raised the dead. Divine Omniscience is the Holy Spirit. 
Divine Thinking is sure to make Health. 

Health is a necessity which is of the self-evidence of Omniscience as Love and 
Life and Truth. To worry and fret and plan a way out of some calamity that we see 
or fear in our affairs is to inscribe wrinkles on our brows and plant dyspepsia in our 
stomachs. All such things are needless vanity. Common sense puts such away. If 
it is true as the Hebrew and Hindoo Scriptures agree in saying — that our body is 
built out of our thought, then we are wise if we cultivate an undei strati, r.g of 
Divine Thinking — called Omniscience. 

Right thinking is sure to find right wording. Then is your " speech seasoned 
with salt." which preserves your body in health. This is mightily practical, for it is 
written that "godliness is profitable for the life which now is." 

If you believe in Omniscience, you can not believe in any wrong thinking or 
wrong wording. You can not even think that there ever are or can be any such things, 
for if there be any Truth in the teaching of Divine Omniscience, then there can not 
be anvthing else beside Omniscience, for it is All. Sticking to this heals, for all 
sickness is vanity, since All-Thinking — called Omniscience — is Health. 

Paul suggests a very sensible rule, which it is self-evident will keep a sound 
health for anyone, both in mind and body, if it is true that thoughts have anything to 
do with bodily and mental conditions, he says — " whatsoever things are true, what- 
soever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any 
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." (Phil. 4:8.) 

This is Divine Omniscience — the Infinite Intelligence of Supreme Being — The 
J AM THAT I AM, the All-Thinking-One, besides whom there can none else. 

{Preached at Akron, Ohio, Sept. 21,1890, and Jan. 18, 1891.] 



NO EVIL. 



We have said and shown very plainly that the fact of the Allness of the Good is 
an axiom. This we saw to be the positive statement of which this is the negative, 
that — there is )io evil. 

Inasmuch as we believe in the one, we believe in the other. To believe in the All- 
ness of God as Good is to be religious, so to believe in the negative — that there is 
310 evil at all — is also to be religious. 

— 39 — 



To disbelieve in God is accounted atheistic, so to disbelieve the unreality of evil 
is also atheistic. To believe in evil at all is to be atheistic, just in proportion as one 
adheres to such vain imagination. 

The statement — that there is no evil — is an intuition, therefore it cannot be proved 
in the ordinary sense of proof. The Allness of the Good or the nothingness of evil 
is one mental axiom which stands or falls according as mankind opens or shuts its- 
mind to the Divine Nature ever seeking utterance within us. 

Now having such an axiom, we may use it in demonstration. If it be a true 
axiom it will prove such by establishing freedom, since " the truth makes free." This 
true intuition has indeed been used with wonderful freeing effects through the length 
and breadth of this land. 

Now let us consider here briefly a mathematical illustration showing the relation 
between the Allness of the Good and the nothingness of evil: We remember that a 
fraction consists of a numerator above the line and a denominator below the line. We 
are all familiar with the fact that to increase the numerator is to increase the fraction , 
but to increase the denominator is to decrease the fraction. For instance, taking the 
fraction one-half (\) and adding three (3) to the numerator, it equals four halves (|) 
or two (2). But to add three (3) to the denominator we get one-fifth (i), which is- 
ten times as small as the number 2 obtained by adding three to the numerator. Thus 
to increase the value of the fraction we must either add to the numerator or else sub- 
tract from the denominator. So letting the numerator illustrate the Allness of the 
Good and the denominator illustrate the imagination of evil, we see that to add faith 
in the one is to subtract faith in the other. 

Here is another illustration : Did you ever look at your image in a mirror stead- 
ily and for a long time? If you have, you have had this queer experience: You began 
to feel as though you were really the image in the mirror, and not yourself outside. 
You will begin to dread to take your eyes off the image, lest it vanish and you be hurt 
in the disappearance. You will become afraid to move away from the reflecting 
surface, because you have become so at one with the image that you feel that its death 
is your death. You remember the sign that a broken mirror means death, but it does 
not ; so you see you have become deluded by your imagination regarding yourself 
being in the mere shadow image. 

Just in this way people have been led to believe in the existence of the shadow 
evil, rather than the substance Good, or God. 

You know how the steady gaze of a man will hold a lion in abeyance. He sees 
his image in the eye of the man. Did you never see your image in some one's eye ? 

You remember your experience in gazing steadily and somewhat prolongedly into 
the reflector was with no little of fear : so it is in the case of the lion looking in the 
man's eye ; so it is with the fluttering bird who sees its image in the eye of 
the snake ; so it is with man when he gazes at his evil imaginations. So Zachariah 
says — "Let none imagine evil." So Job says — "Take heed, look not at iniquity."" 
(3d chap.) 

— 40 — 



Many seem to fear lest the denial of evil will put out all further use for religion 
in the world. This comes from a mistaken notion as to the purpose and place of re- 
ligion. We are aware that among many up to date the church has been thought to 
be a sort of training school where humanity is taught the art of fighting against the 
devil. Then we find not a few looking upon religion as a mere department of our life 
on earth. They relegate to this portion of their education the general supervision of 
evil and sin and post-mortem hopes. 

Xow religion consists in knowing God, the Good. Hence, the less we believe in 
evil, the wider its scope, and the grander and more sublime its attainments. Religion 
is blank negation of all evil : just as God is : just as Man is. This is faith and power. 

We read much now-a-days about the famous Frenchman Charcot and his co- 
worker Bernheim. You will find a considerable written by them and of their hyp- 
notizing experiments and investigations which they are carrying on now in Europe. 

Thev tell their patient that the blank paper in their hand is a photograph. They 
describe the picture fully. The subject believes it, and will pick out the particular 
blank card from a large number of others. To the subject the photo is a reality. Sev- 
eral days afterwards they will still pick out the blank card and be ready to ridicule 
anyone who disputes it being a genuine picture, just as they describe it. They insist 
upon the color of the hair, or the shape of the features, just as we would a painting 
we were looking at. Others are told that they have lost their legs and they go hobbling 
about. Some are informed that they are blind as bats, and although their eye-sight is 
really perfect, they can not see the sun or tell where it is even though it is shining 
full and clear in their faces. 

You know how the man in the " delirium tremens" will howl and scream at the 
snakes and lizards and toads he sees. We see none at all. 

You visit a hospital and you will hear them moaning with various pains and 
diseases, which you and nobody else can find out the cause of, and at things they say 
are going on in their heads and bodies which are plain enough to them, but which 
you cannot see at all, any more than you can see the snakes of the drunkard. 

We know that the whole thing is image-making — that is idolatry — which Paul 
and Solomon declare is absolute nothingness, never was and never shall be at all 
forever. As Ezekiel says — " they dwell in chambers of imagery." Such is every 
sick chamber, every hospital, every prison, every place of evil resort in the earth. 

As you look out upon this shadow world, you will find .the vast majority bowing 
down to some idol, some image, some vain imagination. 

You remember how the prophets of Baal howled and cut themselves to propitiate 
their idol. So you will find people howling before their idols of pain, and practicing 
in their odd imaginations all the vain and bloody arts of surgical worship. Can you 
not see them cutting and slashing each other and themselves for tumors and cancers 
and bruises; indeed it would almost seem as if in actual fact, when we realize at all 
this vast and queer earthly drama or stage-play, that the Lord had delivered them 
over to the hardness and confusion of their imaginations, just as Hezekiah thought 



when he saw the vast and splendid army of Sennacherib hacking and cutting and 
killing each other to the glorious deliverance of Israel. The spiritually-minded see 
in this simple story — founded as it is upon facts — the shadow moving away to reveal 
the true spiritual Man, the Israel of God. So are we taught by the Divine Science 
of Life to look upon the whole shadow performance of the earth. 

Skilled as we become in understanding the Substance of the Good, we stand as 
calmly as Elijah on Mt. Carmel, although the brook Kedron pours down in rushing 
torrents of tfre blood of four hundred Baal-worshipers. No grotesqueness or horror in 
the play can alarm us or even thrill us with pity since the shadow Vanishes away 
when " the son of righteousness arises with healing: in his wing:s." 

One of the most curious facts about idolatry is that the most tremendous deformi- 
ties of shape and appearance have been constructed into idols. Some of the images of 
Egypt are marvels of hideousness. Every wild, indeed we may say frantic, concep- 
tion of the fancy has been made into wood or stone, or silver or gold, and worshipped. 
It is no wonder at all to me that when such outrageous thoughts about God have been 
externalized wherever the presence of man has shown itself upon the face of the 
earth, that we should find ourselves as a race clad not at all in the "beauty of holiness," 
but in the homeliness of idolatry. If mortal mind makes such fearful pictures of God, 
how can^we expect it to do better of man and woman. It is unchristian to be homely- 
Beauty is divine and of the heart of faith, and not in the heart of evil imagery. I am 
not at all surprised that the Alexandrians slew the beautiful Hypatia. Her extreme 
loveliness of form and feature was a continual and powerful rebuke to their civilization. 

The science of language has been doing a great deal of late to resurrect ideas. 
In the " chamber of imagery" called the flesh, they put grave-stones at the head of 
their graves. So as ideas enter graves of oblivion, words become their tomb-stones. 
There is a long since resurrected idea, which many imagine lies buried under the 
tomb -stone word — evil. 

A true idea never dies, yet we must say, just as Jesus did — " / AM the Resur- 
rection and the Life," — in order to call out the ideas which cannot come into this vale 
of fleshly imagination without the true word of authority is spoken to banish idolatry 
of vanity. 

Now the best Hebrew scholars on this planet state that the Hebrew word for 
evil — that is " aven" — means in its essence, absolute nothingness. Only spiritual - 
mindedness can reveal this great idea to you. It is only by the power of understand- 
ing that you can call out to your realization the glorious truth, which lies dormant in 
the Word evil. 

Because you do not see this marvelous revelation does not at all change the truth 
of it. It is true that God made all things, and did not make evil at all. It is true that 
evil was never made and is not. It is true and everybody shall see it. It is the law 
and everybody shall obey it. "Press toward the mark." 

We are compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses who have seen that 



— — 



evil is nothing at all — that there is no evil at all. God is no respecter of persons. 
What man //as clone man can do. What man ca/i do, man must do. 

There is no evil. This is truth. Speak the Truth. David says, " They that 
speak Truth shall stand as Mt. Zion, which cannot be moved." 

Very many people believe in a personal devil. They hold it to be a very irre- 
ligious act to denv the existence of this personal satan. This opinion they hold to all 
the more strongly since they read of such a being in the Bible. They are very much 
afraid of this being. It seems that many of them fear him more than they do God. 
Some of these believers in the devil find in him a very valid and sufficient excuse for 
their sins and short-comings in faith and practice. Some of these people claim they 
have really seen this being. Luther said he had. You all know the story of his 
throwing the ink bottle at him. 

These folks who believe in the devil are driven to very strange theories to account 
for the origin of this being. The Zoroastrians held that there were always two be- 
ings, one good and one bad. Each is eternal. Sometimes one had the upper hand in 
the conflict, and sometimes the other. But thev thought that mostly the devil. But 
most of the thinking people now-a-days rather reject that theory. 

Some think that God created the devil originally good, and he became bad by the 
exercise of his own free moral agency. They think he is a fallen angel. That pride 
and envy were the cause of his fall. That as he had fallen himself he managed in some 
way to entice man to his ruin. 

It is a very noticeable fact that the greater the belief in the existence of the devil, 
the less the freedom of those who believed. 

After a while some few " advanced thinkers" (as they were called) came to the 
conclusion that there was no personal devil. They knew they had never seen any. 
They knew that God could not have created any such monster and turned him loose 
upon His beloved family of children. Their own fatherly and motherly instinct 
told them that such an act would be too base even for human parents, much 
more for Divine Love. They were ready to find some meaning for the Bible stories 
which would leave the Love of God wholly perfect and rational. 

When these people refused any longer to bow down to the satan doctrine of 
tradition, a great load of fear was removed from them and their children. They 
became less afraid in the dark. They began to treat their children more lovingly, 
and their little ones learned to obey more out of love than fear. There was a great 
revolution in family relations. There were fewer sons run away to sea, fewer daugh- 
ters hated their homes. There was more love and kindredship between brothers 
and sisters. 

Moreover a great burden was lifted off learning. Liberal arts were cultivated. 
School-masters were forced to know the discipline of love in place of the blow of the 
rod. Painting and poetry took a freer and more spiritual start. Wiser and more 
liberal laws were put upon our statute books. Government officials were forced to 
become more polite on the outside. Many a political tyrant of Europe fell from his 

— 43 — 



place of misrule when the people lost somewhat of their confidence in a real satan, 
prowling about with hoofs and horns. In general we may say that a great cloud of 
fear was lifted off the earth forever, and the race breathed freer. 

But these people who refused to believe in a personal evil spirit, still clung to 
the notion of an impersonal satan. They thought that there was a principle of evil 
working ever against the good, and often — yea indeed most always — got the best of 
the good. 

They despaired of ever getting away from this principle of evil in this world. 
Yet it was best to do the best they could under the very unfortunate state of things. 

They had experienced a little freedom, but this new idea of the power of the 
principle of evil plunged them into all the greater despair and sickness. 

But a few saw that just as partial rejection of evil had yielded partial freedom, 
so absolute rejection of evil would bring about absolute freedom. So these people de- 
termined to reject evil wholly and get perfect freedom. 

They saw that if it -was true that God made all things and did not make any evil 
at all, there could not be any evil in the universe. They reasoned that if it were true 
that God had made all things good, so that He could pronounce them " very good," it 
was the Truth for them to know, since it would surely make them free from their fear 
and bondage to evil conditions and evil thoughts and imaginations. 

These people had learned in material science that what they saw and heard and 
knew through their physical senses was not reliable evidence at all. They were 
ready to enter upon the domain of true, pure reasoning, where intuition was at hand 
to guide them into paths of joy and freedom. 

So they began by their true words to cast out their vain imaginations and build 
up in their understanding the spiritual realities of faith. They insisted that God was 
good and all in all. They knew this really meant that there was no evil at all. These 
people are witnessing to the children of this age the freedom and joy which comes 
from speaking these true words. They have been able to speak words of truth to 
heal the sick, and comfort the afflicted and unburden the fearing. They have found 
words of truth to be keys into the kingdom of Heaven, where is every spiritual bless- 
ing. These people were very glad to i - ead in the words which St. John ascribes 
to Jesus Christ — the great teacher — a very perfect definition of the devil and with him 
of all evil, for they saw that satan was only the image of evil personified. 

Jesus, they say, said of this devil — "he stands not in the truth, neither is there any 
truth in him." They knew that without truth there is no reality. Without truth all 
is but vain imagination. So they saw that there was no reality in the devil, and he 
does not stand upon reality. By this they knew that he was not at all. 

They knew also the saying that Christ was manifest to destroy the works of the 
devil. They reasoned very sensibly that the "works of the devil" meant evil, and 
that Christ meant truth, so they saw that the truth put away the vain imagination or 
belief in the " works of the devil." Thus they saw that there is no reality or truth in 
the evil at all. Hence that there is no evil in the universe. 

— 44 — 



Thev testify that speaking these true words free them of many burdens of mind 
and bodv. They -witness that the realization of the nothingness of evil and the All- 
ness of the good came to them as the reward of faithfully speaking these true words, 
saving positively — there is no evil at all. 

Christian Science makes the statement that there is no sin at all in the universe. 
If this statement is true it will prove. The proof is, its making us free. If this state- 
ment is false then Christian Science is in error, and we shall not be free. Paul says 
— " the law of the Spirit of Life makes us free from the law of sin and death." 
The object of making this statement, in spite of the clamorous testimony of the senses, 
is to be free. 

Christian Science states that many people have been healed of long-standing and 
chronic diseases of both mind and body (or unconscious mind) by the treatment that 
there is no sin, and no punishment for sin. Jesus often healed very serious cases by the 
treatment, "thy sins are forgiven thee," — " go in peace." 

Now we do not say that there is no sin as long as one believes in and practices 
sin, but to free them from the belief and practice. The practice of sin is the out-show- 
ing of belief in sin. If sin were Reality, it could never be put away, since Reality is 
Truth, which is Eternal and Indestructible. The belief in sin is an unreality, as sin 
itself is and proves to be. Reality is always Good, therefore sin cannot be Reality 
or Truth. Jesus, the True Man, is the Truth, and no sin is in Him. 

God does and thinks All that is done or thought in the universe. God does not, 
nor thinks, sin, hence there is no sin done or thought. Some may imagine that because 
God does and thinks all, Man's free moral agency is destroyed — so that Man is not a 
free being. But Man is the image of God, hence as God is free, so Man is also 
free. But God cannot sin and yet is free. So Man cannot sin and yet is free. If 
God's inability to sin destroys his freedom, then we might argue that Man's inability 
to sin would destroy his freedom. But God, a sinner, could not be God, so Man, a 
sinner, cannot be Man. Hence Man is not a sinner. 

To imagine that God permitted sin, infers that He does not do and think as the 
All of the universe. If He does not, then He is not All, and Paul's statement that 
" God is All and in All " is false. 

But if there is no sin at all, how comes it then so many think there is ? They 
do not — their true selves do not and cannot. But how came there to be any false self? 
The false self is a vanity, and unreality, a nothing ; hence is not. Does not the false 
self sin ? If a nothing could do anything, it might sin. But a nothing can only do 
nothing. So the sinning of the false self is, in its own image and likeness, nothing. 
To believe in the reality of sin is to deny the Allness of God. 

Paul says — " All unrighteousness is sin." Since righteousness is true thinking, 
so unrighteousness is false thinking ; hence sin is false thinking. Paul says again — 
"All that is not of faith is sin." We known that faith perceives only Truth, hence 
all that does not see Truth is sin. So sin is the perception of unreality. Now the 
perception of unreality is imagination, so sin is imagination. 

— 45~ 



Thus some scriptural writers say sin is idolatry. Paul says "idols are nothing," 
hence sin is nothing. Solomon says idolatry " never was and never shall be forever," 
hence sin " never was and never shall be forever." Idolatry is image-making:, that is 
imagination, hence sin is imagining, or nothingness. 

St. John says — "Whosoever is begotten of God, doeth no sin, because his seed 
abideth in him; and he cannot sin because he is begotten of God." (I John 3:9.) 
If «// are not of God, then God is not All, and there are two sources in the universe. 
But God is All, and the Father of All, and the Source of All. Hence all are begotten 
of God and cannot sin, according to St. John's argument and the pure reasoning of 
Christian Science. 

St. Augustine held that God is the Creator of all entities ; but he did not create 
sin, because sin is not an entity. His dictum, which has passed into general currency 
with all classes of theologians, was '■'Nihil est malum nisi frivatio boni" whch means 
— " there is no evil, but merely absence of good." That is, evil or sin is negation. 
(A. A. Hodge, D.D., Theol., p. 320.) This is just what Emerson thought. 

If God is All Power and yet can not sin, then there is no power to sin. If God is 
All Intelligence, yet can not sin, then there is no intelligence that can sin. There 
is, therefore, no knowledge of sin. If God is All-Love, and yet can not sin, there can 
be no love of sin in the universe. 

That sin could exist is a mystery, but that it does not exist is plain. To become 
as a little child is to see the non-existence of sin, which is to enter the state of mind 
called the Kingdom of Heaven. 

If there is no sin, -why did Jesus come into this world and teach salvation from sin? 
Jesus was jn this world or state of mind, for precisely the same reason we are, namely: 
to prove that this state of mind is a state or age of vanity or nothingness, and that He 
was really always in the Kingdom of Heaven, or as St. John said — " in the bosom of 
the Father." Paul says the whole world (or state of mind called world or age), is 
subject to vanity. 

Reality is Omnipotent, and if sin were Reality, there could be no salvation from 
it. Salvation consists in seeing and realizing the absolute nothingness of sin. Jesus 
proved the vanity of the power of sin, and so taught salvation or healing from sin. 

We have been told a great deal about the conscience. What is a healthy con- 
science ? It is just like a healthy head. A healthy head is one whose presence is so 
unconscious that we are not seemingly aware that we have any head at all. So a 
healthy conscience is one whose presence is as though you hadn't any conscience at all. 
A guilty conscience is one which has not realized the vanity of sin. 

There is one lady who is a wonderful healer, whose only treatment is that there 
is no punishment for sin. So many people seem born into the flesh with such over- 
sensitive consciences, that they keep them continually sick, sin seems so real to them. 
No doubt that the calvinistic doctrine of sin, has made out of its violent imaginations 
or idolatry, a vast deal of disease and sickness from guilt. 

A conscience is often capable of queer freaks of imagination or idolatry. For 

-46- 



instance, Wilkes Booth's conscience was guilty until he had shot Abraham Lincoln. 
Guiteau's conscience was guilty till he had shot Garfield. The consciences of the 
Russian nihilists demand the death and destruction of Russian royalty. Many a con- 
science in this land and on this whole earth is not appeased until it has killed or 
made diseased or sick its owner. A true conscience is happy, loving and approving. 
It is the voice of God the Good in all of us. It comes from the realization of the 
nothingness of all evil and sin. and the Allness of the Good. A false conscience is a 
creator of idolatrv. Many a pagan's conscience is appeased only by such faithful idol- 
worship as his education may have put around him. Idolatry is nothing, so is the 
false conscience. A seared conscience is one that is satisfied by idolatry. Its satis- 
faction is vanity. The man who believes in and practices evil, has a seared conscience, 
if he can then appease his fear of punishment by some formal worship or act of 
penance — that is by idolatry. Paul says that the truth removes all conscience of sins, 
'•purging us from dead 'works to serve the living God." 

If there is no sin, what is the meaning of repentance ? Repentance means turn- 
ing again. You cannot turn again to a thing to which you have not been once turned. 
Hence you have been in the Good, and by repenting you turn again to it. We may 
go deeper. Repentance means denial. Denial is washing or cleansing. So John the 
Baptist preached the cleansing or baptism of repentance. The denial of the existence 
and power of sin is the baptism of repentance. So John the Baptist was' led of the 
spirit to say. when he saw Jesus — " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
sins of the world." Repentance destroys sin, because it says there is no sin at all. 
No one can say in Truth that there is no sin, and make it an excuse for sin. If one 
says that there is no sin and ) r et goes on practicing what has been called sin, he 
shows that he still, in his heart, believes in sin. The words of true repentance are — 
God, the Good, is All in All, there is no evil at all. Why repentance or turning again 
if there is no sin or turning away ? ,The sin is an image or imagination of the vain 
heart, and the turning or repentance, which is caused by it, is also a vanity. Do you 
mean to say there is no reality in repentance? Man is the image and likeness of God. 
If God can repent, then Man can also ; for Jesus says — " Whatsoever I see the Father 
doing, that do I also." But God cannot repent or 'turn, for He is, as James says — 
"without variableness or shadow of turning," — in which he plainly teaches that turn- 
ing or repentance is a shadow — a nothing. So Man cannot repent, for " in him 
there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." The turning from imagination 
to faith is but the revelation of the Truth, that there is no reality in imagination 
and all-reality in faith. 

Hear these words of Asaph, the secretary of David, the King of Israel. (Ps. 50.) 
"The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth from the rising of 
the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God 
hath shined forth. Our God is come, and does not keep silence ; a fire devoureth 
before him, and it is very tempestuous round about Him. He calleth to the heavens 
above, and to the earth that He may judge his people. Gather my saints together 

— 47—" 



unto me ; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens 
declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself."' 

We stand on the eve of the greatest event the world has ever witnessed. Signs 
are multiplying on every side of us, compared with which there has been no parallel, 
either in the history of the church or of the world. 

This great event is called in scripture the Presence of the Lord Tesus Christ — 
His second Presence in power and glory — to bring all things into subjection to Him- 
self and to be " King of kings, and Lord of lords." 

Let us look closely at Asaph's vision of the Truth. The first word touches the 
heart — our God. It is the family feeling. None but the child may use it. He is re- 
lated to the Heavenly Father. He is redeemed by the blood of Christ — the word of 
Truth. Blood means word, Christ means Truth. He is in the bonds of the everlast- 
ing covenant — eternally " in the bosom of the Father." He is a joint-heir with 
Jesus Christ. He looks up and says with Solomon — " My beloved is mine, and I 
AM his, He feedeth me." (Cant. 2:16.) He is able to say as the Lord appears in 
Heaven in flaming fire — " Lo ! this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He 
saves us ; this is the Lord — the Law of Truth ; we have waited for Him ; we are 
glad and do rejoice in His salvation." It is the family feeling. He who put into 
our lips the sweet words — " Our Father" — enables us to see His glorious Presence, and 
say — " Our God." 

We are about to witness a fearful vanity — where God appears as a devouring 
fire, with storms and tempests raging around Him. Oh ! how necessary to be able 
to say, before we face it — " Our God." What if we cannot say — " Our God." Only 
this can make you calm in the prospect that you can see the reality and say — "Our God." 

So the Holy Spirit puts this little word "our" first, on which we may dwell earn 
estly, soberly, searchingly, before we read what follows. 

" Our God is come and does not keep silence." In order to understand what is 
meant here by God's "not keeping silence," we must refer to the closing part of this 
psalm from v. 16-22. "But unto men of vanity God saith, what hast thou to do to 
declare my statutes, or that thou shouldst take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing 
thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee. When thou sawest a thief, 
then thou consentest with him. Thou givest thy mouth to evil and thy tongue frameth 
deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother. These things hast thou done 
and I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." 
Here is a perfect picture of this vain world of mortal appearances — such the history 
of material man has been for ages. Such is the out-showing of the belief in sin, 
and evil. 

Let us look for a moment at our times, which record just what comes from 
believing in evil. This is an age of brilliant pretensions, but sad carnal realities. 
Its professions and practices, its facts and theories, present a climax of contradictions. 
There never was so much of the form of Godliness, and never so little of the 
power thereof. Never were there so many professors of religion, and never so little of 

•-48- 



religion itself. Never so many assurances of peace, and never so extensive and urgent 
preparations for war. Never so many tokens of coming danger and calamity, and 
never such a feeling of security on the part of the people. There never was a time 
when the hope of the millennium was more universally cherished and talked of, and 
never a time when every feature of society, social, moral and political, made such an 
idea seem more preposterous. There never was a time when there was so much 
money in the world, and never a time when there was more wide-spread and distress- 
ing poverty. There never was a time when there were so many remedies for every 
disease, which profess to be sure cures, absolutely infallible, and never a time when 
there seemed so much disease, sickness, suffering and death. There never was a time 
when there was so much boasting of progress and advancement on the part of the 
race, and never a time when they gave more palpable evidence of fast descending into 
every depth of the shadow of iniquity and the vanity of sin. And what does 
all this symbolize ? That mankind believes in and practices a sham — deceiving and 
being deceived. 

But you who have been taught of the Truth, of the marvelous and saving Spirit 
and Law of Truth. You, who know the realities of that Divine and Spiritual Realm, 
you whose hearts beat in tune with the great pulsations of the Good ; you, whose 
spiritual eyes behold the presence of the Law of glory and power, shall stand so 
calmly and so gloriously amid the tossing calamities of shadows, dancing images on 
the vast walls of eternity, for God, the Eternal Good, is ever with you. 

Stand fast in the faith. Gird yourselves with Omnipotence, walk in the Spirit, 
think in the Truth of the Good, devote your hearts to the Law of Love; speak truly; 
see righteousness; hear faithfully; live wisely; act lovingly; be good. 



NO MATTER. 



Science comes from a Latin word — scire — which means to know. Science then 
is knowledge. We take knowledge to be the understanding of Truth. We do not 
admit that there is any but Divine Truth. Thus we deny the existence of any science, 
except the knowledge of God. This is because we really and truly know that God 
is All. 

We call that which is not the knowledge of God, who is Spirit, ignorance. Thus 
we see that ignorance is the opposite of the understanding of Spirit. Now, as we 
know Spirit or God only by self-evidence, we find out that all that is not of self-evi- 
dence is ignorance. Thus self-evidence is the law of knowledge, and doubt is the law 
of ignorance. 

Knowledge by self-evidence in Spirit is Science. So we agree with Plato and the 
thousands of the wise and good and profound thinkers of the earth in all its ages, that 
no one is a scientist who believes in the reality of matter, for God is a Scientist and 
does not know materiality at all. 

— 49 — 



We deny that doubt can make a Scientist. We affirm that self-evidence reveals 
the Substance, that is Spirit, that is God, that is Man. 

A little observation will satisfy any candid mind that belief in material things 
makes doubt and scepticism. The Pyrrhonists, who flourished in the fourth century, 
B. C, were such extreme doubters that they even doubted the fact that they did or 
could doubt at all. Thus they proved that doubt will at last doubt its own existence, 
thus commit suicide, and out of its ashes rises self-evidence " to soar Phoenix-like to 
Jove." 

The culture of the carnal mind is ignorance and not at all knowledge, as our 
modern system of education holds. It is ignorance because it seeks to know that which 
is not Spirit, namely, material things; but Spirit is All there is. You cannot know 
matter at all. It is unknowable : it is only ignorance : it is not thinkable. It is van- 
ity, — the realm of imagination and idolatry. You have been told that God-Spirit is a 
mystery ; that He is unknowable and incomprehensible. So He is to the mortal mind, 
— that is the no mind. But in Truth, matter is the mystery, the incomprehensible, 
while Spirit is the only source and Substance of knowledge. 

The Bibliotheca Sacra of Oberlin Theological Seminary (1SS7) had a piece in it, 
not long since, showing that Jesus was more in astonishment and in mystery at the 
idea that he could be the Son of Man, than that he was the Son of God. The nothing- 
ness of the flesh surprised Him more than the Substance of the Spirit. The reality of 
God was familiar to his thinking and to his Spiritual understanding, but His Christ- 
mind could not account for the mortal idea that vanity was at all reality. 

When the mortal or carnal mind of our beliefs knows itself, it will come to its 
native oblivion of nothingness. It will be then just "what it always was and is, a 
vanity, utter void and blank. 

Denial drives the mortal to the self-revelation of its own empty nature. Then 
beliefs vanish. Time is that fatal deception by which carnal belief reduces itself to 
nothingness, even in its own plane. It is, was, and ever will be nothing to Spirit-God- 
Substance. So, inasmuch as we know God, our ignorant beliefs in matter and 
matter-mind dissolve into vanity. 

Confucius argued very truly, that if matter were real, then it was eternal and 
therefore uncreated. But Spirit is the only Reality. It only is Eternal. Matter is 
non est. 

The physicists say that the prime quality of matter is inertia. Inertia means 
cleadness — that is, absolute incapacity in itself. No better definition of nothingness 
can be set forth than this of inertia, with which matter has been self-christened. In- 
ertia is nothing — complete and entire inability to do anything at all. 

To believe in matter is to believe in death, since matter is inertia, or deadness. 
To deny matter is to deny inertia, or death. We know " that the law of the Spirit of 
Life makes us free from the law of sin and death." Matter is death, Spirit is Life, so 
in all wisdom cling closely and absolutely to Spirit and live. 

— 50 — 



God-Spirit is Light and, as Plotinus and St. John taught, matter and flesh are 
darkness. We remember that Light always means Truth, or knowledge of Truth, and 
darkness stands for ignorance. 

We see that the knowledge of Truth is something, and the ignorance of Truth is 
nothing, so we see that ignorance or matter or darkness is nothing. 

They sometimes call matter a falsitv, as God is Truth, as Spirit is Truth. We 
easilv see that a falsitv or a lie is nothing, just as a Truth is something. 

Whatsoever God sees is real and true and eternal and unchangeable and good. If 
God sees matter it is eternal and true and real and changeless. But matter is not 
eternal, and it is changeable, hence God does not see it and it is not true and real. 

God is Spirit — altogether Spirit. He sees only Spirit, according to the well 
known law that sight depends upon the one who is looking. Some people cannot see 
red, because they have in their natures or seeing ability nothing of the carnal idea of 
red. Thev may be color blind to any or all colors. What is seen depends upon the 
eves, upon the one looking. This is a general law. God, being Spirit, sees only 
Spirit. If he sees matter, then matter is Spirit, and not at all matter, as it seems. If 
matter is not matter, but Spirit, then there is no matter at all, and All is Spirit. Then 
the statement that God is All and God is Spirit and Spirit is All, is right and true, and 
bv it we shall be free, for the Truth makes free. 

To imagine that we lose anything by denying away matter, is to believe in and 
love matter and material things. To fear in our denial of worldliness — which is 
belief in materiality — is to create in our freedom from matter some hurting imagination. 
To lose matter is to gain Spirit. But since matter is nothing, in it we lose nothing. 
And in Spirit we gain All that is, — all Being, — all Good— God. 

If you imagine that to be free from belief in matter is to die, you cre'ate a law of 
death which only the Law of the Spirit of Life can free you from. You cannot die, 
nor is death a door to freedom or to Life. Denial is the way to be free from false 
belief in matter and sin and death. Death is the ending of one belief, to be replaced 
by another. Death is only one of the many mortal, material changes. Change never 
frees. Truth frees. Truth is changeless. As long as you look to death, or any sort of 
change, to free you, you are only creating for yourself deaths and changes to be en- 
dured. Freedom comes only by speaking Truth. 

Now, freedom from matter means freedom from the laws of matter. This opens the 
vision to the many so-called miracles of the spiritually-minded of the race. To Man, 
who like God, is Spirit, material laws, like matter, are nothing. 

The ascension of Elijah and Jesus show how practically one may deny the ma- 
terial law of gravitation. Elisha made the ax swim and the Apostle Philip went to 
Azotus by the same means. 

Sometimes our bodies seem so heavy , and sometimes they are evidently quite free from 
the material law of gravitation. They tell us that some diseases make the body heavier 
by the scales. But often when we can find no change in the weight, there- 
is really in our mortal feelings a load or burden. Thev tell us that on the other planets 

— 5 1 — 



people would be much differently affected by the law of gravitation. On Jupiter — 
they hold — an ordinary man would be crushed by his own weight, while on 
Mercury he would be able to jump several hundred feet into the air, as easily as now 
he jumps one foot from the ground, so he would disappear utterly in a cyclone. 

Now Jeremiah teaches that " a man's word is his only burden." Solomon says 
that foolishness makes weight, in the proverb — "A foolish son is the heaviness of his 
mother." These words have been understood in a very inapplicable sense. But Truth 
is practical. If they insist that Jeremiah and Solomon meant a mental burden or a 
mental heaviness, we do not see any objection to their, view, if they remember that 
Solomon said also that " as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," and Jesus said — 
"According to thy faith be it unto thee." 

To believe in the law of gravitation is to be carnallv-minded. This. is foolishness 
towards God. The flesh is the mother of mortality. Hence we can appreciate the 
wise saying of Solomon, whose prayer for wisdom was answered, when he teaches 
that foolishness is heaviness of the mother — the flesh. The denial of matter and its 
laws is the only escape from such foolishness and heaviness. The thought of Jeremiah, 
that your word is your burden, agrees with the statement of Jesus — "By your words 
are you condemned." Jesus says — " Come unto Me (the Truth) all ye that are 
weary and heavy laden." "The Truth shall make you free" from all material 
laws, — gravitation among the rest. 

There is in physics a law — called " the persistence of vision." You see a streak 
of lightning, but there is no line of light there. It is merely the quick passage of an 
electric spark, a point of light only. The bright spark passes by before the eye can 
forget its several positions in its path. The streak of lightning is mere memory, ac- 
cording to the law of persistence of vision. This law of physics is more general. It 
may be called the persistence of sensation. All the senses exist in memory. 

By this law we can see that all material things are what we have thought. This 
is what the first verse in the Buddhistic Scriptures means. It reads — "All that we see 
is built out of what we have thought." Our physical conditions, our fleshly bodies r 
are only the memories of our beliefs, our mortal, temporal thinkings. A stick with 
a spark of fire at its end, when whirled in a circle, seems like a ring of fire. But there 
is only one point of light, but the memory makes the ring. 

To be free from these seeming conditions, we must speak the word of denial. 
Belief in flesh and matter melts in the presence of the Truth. " Flesh and blood can- 
not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." So we must be rid of flesh and blood, by denial, 
by water baptism. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you, so there can be no flesh 
and blood in you, else Jesus was mistaken when he said — " Behold the Kingdom of 
Heaven is within you." But Jesus proved his words, " I am the Truth." So we 
speak Truth when we say there is no flesh and blood, there is no matter at all. If you 
stick to this, you stick to Truth, and you get free. 

The Scriptures speak of denying ourselves free from matter and flesh as a dissolv- 
ing process — just as we speak of dissolving things in water. This is a very graphic 

_ 5 2 — 



way of picturing the mortal coming to Truth of its own nothingness. Asaph says in 
the 75th Psalm and 3d verse — "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dis- 
solved." He says, when making this bold denial — " I judge uprightly." Isaiah says 
(14:31) — "Thou art melted away, O! Philistia, all of thee." Philistia means all 
materiality. In chap. 24 and verse 19 he declares — "The earth is clean dissolved." 
In the 34th chap, and 4th verse, he says — " The mountains are melted" — "All the host 
of Heaven are dissolved." Job, speaking of his fleshly body and material conditions 
— " Thou dissolvest my substance" (30:22). Paul encourages the Corinthians to the 
denial of flesh and matter by these words — " For we know that if the earthly house of 
our bodily frame be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the Heavens" (II. Cor. 5:1). In the 6th verse he adds — "Being 
therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, whilst we are at home in the 
body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith and not by appearance)." 
" We are of good courage, I say (these are Paul's words), and are willing rather to be 
absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord." These are Paul's words of 
denial of the fleshly body and affirming his Presence in the Spirit. Let them be our 
words with all our hearts. The Apostle Peter sets forth his idea on the subject of dis- 
solving the earth and all material things of the matter-cosmos in II. Pet., 3:11, 12. The 
future nature, which he has given his understanding of this Truth, does not at all 
alter the Truth of it. Futurity is a mortal belief in time, which Peter has since over- 
come by the word of the Eternal Now. 

In your practical use of this denial, to get free from worldliness and matter and 
flesh, you may find it very helpful to use this strong word " dissolve.'''' It may be just 
your freeing word. Each must find his own word. Be faithful ; be free. 

Do not give up and let the hardness of matter and carnality cool your zeal and 
cast down your hopes. One of the properties of matter is hardness. This makes it 
and the flesh seem obstinate to your denying words of Truth. But constant dropping 
wears away stone. Stick to it. The problem must be solved. Matter must be dis- 
solved. This is the only way, by faithful and constant denial of appearances. Herein 
lies freedom. No heart can ever reach Satisfaction short of full and perfect freedom, 
which can come only by full and perfect denial. 

Those who believe in matter, believe in the hardness of matter. This makes 
obstinacy. What is ordinarily styled mulishness is a false belief in material hardness. 
By obstinacy we by no means refer to firmness, the Divine quality of Immutability. 
Obstinacy clings to the doubts and the shadows of imagination and idolatry. Firm- 
ness clings to the Substance of faith and hope. Obstinacy believes in matter ; firm- 
ness understands Spirit. God is not obstinate, but He is unchangeable. Obstinacy 
sticks to evil ; firmness sticks to Good. Obstinacy comes from pride ; firmness is of 
meekness. You need often to say — there is no such thing as obstinacy — there is no 
hardness in matter — Spirit is the only Substance — Faith is the only firmness. 

The wise and good of all ages and peoples have taught that the fleshly body, per- 
ceived by the physical senses, is absolute and utter nothingness. They do not give 

— 53 — 



this as their opinion, to be taken for what it is worth, but state that this is absolute 
and eternal Truth, which all must know to know anything. Plato taught that such 
knowledge is the only science. According to these prophets, priests, seers and sages 
of Sacred lore, whoever believes in the human body of flesh and blood and bones is 
ignorant of Divine Truth. 

Now, we are all very much in earnest in our search after the Truth. We are only 
too glad to lay down every prejudice and error. If it is true that the body of flesh is 
wholly non est, null and void, we want, by all means, to know it. We are ready to 
be made free by the Truth. 

Now, a good many of us think so devoutly of Jesus of Nazareth that we would 
be more willing to try to understand that our bodies are nothings, if we felt sure that 
He thought so and gave that doctrine to His Apostles. It is quite impossible to get any 
sense out of Jesus' words and works and those of His followers, unless we deny the 
physical body as a mere creature of the carnal mind, which is itself pure nothingness. 
If Jesus had meant us to believe in the body of flesh, He would not have been 
translated away out of the reach of our physical senses and affections. Nor would He 
have said " the flesh profiteth nothing," if He had meant us to esteem it as real and Di- 
vine. After His triumph over death, He says — " Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as 
ye see me have," that we might know even death cannot put us into the Kingdom, 
where Paul states " flesh and blood" cannot come. 

Jesus was far more absolute in denying the fleshly body than most of us have 
dreamed. He even denies away all physical family ties, all blood relationships of the 
most vital and domestic nature. He enters the fleshly home and declares for the 
Spiritual home and its Spiritual relationships. He says — " He that loveth father or 
mother more than me, is not worthy of me : and he that loveth son or daughter more 
than me is not worthy of me" (Mat. 10:37). Again He says — "If any man cometh 
unto me and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and 
brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 
14:26). Such is the doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God. Do not again 
let anybody or thing induce you to imagine that Jesus believed in the fleshly body or 
any of its laws and institutions. He says — "The flesh profiteth nothing" — " Ye must 
be born again." 

If you feel that in thus putting away all worldliness and fleshliness, you are losing 
anything, then you are ignorant of Truth. To know Truth is to love the Truth, for 
Truth is Love, is God. Do not get to thinking that denial means to hate. You all 
understand the difference between not loving a thing or condition, and hating it. If 
you love Truth, you love All, for Truth is All. 

To hate the fleshly life is to believe in its reality. This is the mistake of fanat- 
icism. This makes cranks. Jesus was not a fanatic, not a crank. The old monks 
thought that to deny the body and its relations was to hate it and the family and 
society and government. This is the error of asceticism. To fast, to scourge, to become 
a hermit, to put on sackcloth and ashes is mere formalism, ritualism. It is to think 

— 54 — 



matter and flesh real, and that spirituality consists in some sort of will- worship. These 
are methods to earn in wages the eternal life, which is a gift of God. It is to suppose 
that there is some other method than the word to get a knowledge of the Truth. All 
things are by the word, not fleshly tortures, not social ostracism, not family ruptures. 
These are external. The word of the heart is internal. The word of Truth is spir- 
itual, is Power. With the word you can do all things, without it you can do nothing. 
To try to demonstrate any doctrine of this Science by odd conduct, or eccentric and 
illegal infringement of the laws and customs of this land, or any other land, is to 
violate the very first principle of this new doctrine, namely, the absolute method of 
the Power of the word. The fifth lesson of this Science teaches that the word of Truth 
brings all things to pass that are Good, and that there is no other way at all. 

Do you wish to bring about some better marriage conditions than those which 
keep you in hateful bondage? Beware that you do not increase your calamity by 
violating the fleshly ties. The word of Truth is your only release. The word of 
Truth is in your mouth. The word of Power awaits your speaking. This is the prayer 
of the Christian. Speak the Truth. // will free you. You can, of yourself, do 
nothing. Jesus says — "Of myself I can do nothing." The word of Truth is the way 
into the Kingdom of Heaven within you. The Word of Truth says — " I am the 
door"—" Whosoever cometh up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." 

Declare that all is peace and harmony : that Love is the only reality : that Spirit 
is the only relationship. Be faithful, and your conditions will become free and happy. 
This is the Science of the Power of the word of Truth. It has been tried and not 
found wanting. Have you a husband with whom you would have happy and free com- 
munion in the Truth of Spirit? Have you a wife who does not seem to be in perfect har- 
mony with you in this Gospel of Jesus Christ? Is there a brother, or a sister, or a father, 
or a mother, or a child, or a friend who, by fleshly bond, stands between you and 
perfect atonement with the full doctrine? What shall you do? You want to do just 
what is right. Shall you give up the Truth — No ! if you do you are not worthy of it. 
Shall you violate the fleshly tie — No ! that is weakness. You shall declare the Truth. 
It will settle your difficulty. Trust all to your word of Truth, It will bring it to pass. 
Stand still and see the glory of God. 

The word of Truth will not only free you from such or any unhappy and ungodly 
conditions, but also will keep you from becoming so entangled in material and fleshly 
bonds. You are so situated, because of your thoughts and words. You can establish 
your life and its surroundings by your words of Truth. There is no other way. The 
word of Truth is — that there is no matter, no flesh, no carnal body at all ; All is Spirit. 
This will free you, because it is true. Be faithful to the Truth. Put your heart into 
your true words. Rest your hopes in the Allness of the Spirit. Love the word of 
Truth. Be free ; be loving : be sincere ; be wise. Stand fast forever. 

[Preached at Akron, Ohio, May 18, 1890.] 



■55' 



PERFECTION. 

It is the nature of the Truth to be wholly true. Partial Truth is no Truth at all. 
That which is, cannot help being just exactly what it is, and nothing else whatsoever. 
Truth cannot be partly true and partly false, because if it could be partly false, that 
falsity would not be Truth, but rather that which is not Truth, or would be nothing, 
and hence would not and could not be at all. Truth is and must be perfect. Its 
whole and entire nature is perfection. That it must be so is the vital energy of its 
All-Being. The Omnipotence of Truth is its necessitous and irresistible perfection. 

God is Truth. God is perfect. His full and entire nature is perfection. To be 
God, He must be Perfection. God is All. His Allness is his Perfection. There is 
nothing else for God to be but Perfection. If there were anything else for God to be 
besides Perfection, He could not be it and be God. God cannot depart from His own 
nature of Perfection. He must — by the Omnipotent necessity of His Being — abide in 
His absolute quality of Perfection. 

Man is perfect. He cannot help it. It is his nature. He has no desire or im- 
pulse to help it. There is nothing else for Man to be, since Perfection is All. The 
perception of the invincible necessity, forcing Man to abide by the Law of His nature, 
compelling him to stay by the perfection of His Being, is All-Power. There never 
was, is, or can there ever be anything at all to dim the luminous substance of Man's 
Perfection, since his Divine Nature is all there is. 

The Perfection of Man is not stagnation, any more than the Perfection of God is 
stagnation. The Divine Nature of God-Man is Perfect, but by no means stagnant. 
By stagnation, everyone means death, ending, estoppel of existence and worth. Death 
is nothingness. Stagnation is nothingness. The Perfection of Man-God is Life, but 
not growth. Stagnation is a kind of growth. It is when one sort of vanity stops to 
change into another. It is like death, the halting ground between two steps or mortal 
grades of growth or change. It is the false pause out of which springs motion. In 
physics there is not found any such thing as entire stagnation. It is a law of flesh and 
matter and all carnality to be ever in restless motion. Every atom of the physical cos- 
mos has its swing of the pendulum, its nervous pulsation, its rate of ceaseless vibration. 
The stagnant pool — so called — is as quivering with physical vitality as the vivacious 
muscles of a race horse. The still corpse in the coffin is a very workshop of decaying 
energy. The silent, stagnant rock is full of its network of actions and counter-actions, 
which are the sum total of the boast of mortal vigor in the false and unreal dream of fleshly 
ways. There is no spot or corner of all material mind or nature upon which the dove 
of peace and rest may get one jot or tittle of salvation from shuffling scenes and weary 
toil and bustling turmoil. 

But Perfection is Peace and Rest and Life. As the pendulum swings to and fro, 
at either end of its arc it pauses, stops, and then repeats itself, like the history of the 
race of Adam. The latest physicists are telling us that the earth does not, as was 
said so long, move in an orbit, but in an arc like the pendulum. This they hold to be 

- 5 6_ 



the nature of all motion, known as the rate of vibration of each and every 
and all material atoms of the restless cosmos. The stopping at either end of 
the repeating pendulum is the vanity of stagnation ; when the flesh swings to and fro 
in its so-called arc of motion from the cradle to the grave again and again, it has its 
pause of seeming stagnation or quiet at birth and at death. But it is all pure 
nothingness, a dream without a dreamer, a non-existent mind without an ego. The 
stillness of the grave and the birthplace is only a mockery. But God is not mocked. 
Man is not mocked. Perfection is living peace, full of stillness and rest and power. 

Perfection is not idleness at all. Laziness is not belief in rest, but rather the fear 
of work. The Sabbath rest is not laziness, because it does not fear work or dread 
work or anything else. People are guilty of laziness when they believe in the neces- 
sity of their doing something. The feeling of having some duty to perform is conceit, 
because it is the flesh trying to live by works. The Man of God lives by faith, and 
the energy of his faith is perfect and has no vanity of idleness or laziness in it at all. 
Perfection is the dignity of power, not the guilty weakness of idleness. Perfection is 
the majesty and approval of a finished work, not the sarcastic, conceited fear of lazi- 
ness. God does not work, but rests in conscious supremacy of Peace and Power. 
Man does not " labor for the meat which perisheth," but abides in the perfect under- 
standing of Peace and Power. God is not lazy, though He never worked. Man is not 
lazy, though he toils not ; for work and play are vanity. A lazy person is one who 
prefers play to work, but play is hard work. It is all vanity. God-Man is Omnipo- 
tent Perfection. He cannot help it. It is his nature, in which he can do no other than 
abide forever. We must ever wear the stamp of our eternal character of Divine 
Perfection. We love our Perfect nature of God-Man. 

Perfection must be. The energy of all that is compels all that is to be perfect. 
We do not make or arrive at Perfection ; we are already in full consciousness of its 
absolute nature. 

Because All is Perfect, I cannot help being perfect, since I AM. There is no such 
thing as imperfection. The I AM of 'you must, by its Divine Nature, be perfect. You 
have no choice any more than God has a choice, whether He shall be perfect or not. 
Man must be perfect to be Man, because he cannot deviate the smallest jot or tittle 
from the absolute law of his Perfect Nature. 

The word Perfection comes from two Latin roots, meaning to make thoi'oughly, 
or to be thoroughly made. That is, the nature of Perfection is not future or past, but 
finished and done now already. 

To aim at Perfection as a lofty and worthy goal of our hopes and purposes is 
pure folly. It is to bind yourself in the chains of futurity. Futurity is a lie. To 
speak of it, but to deny it, is lying. It is nothing. Perfection is Eternal. It is Now 
and Forever Now. ^ 

To hope for Perfection is insanity; stop it. You lie against all that is when you 
hope beyond the Now. Cut off every hope anchored in anything but the Eternal Now 
of Perfect Divinity and Absolute Good. Strip off your hopes in the future, unburden 

—57 — 



vour load of regrets for the past, wear the white raiment of your true and eternal and 
perfect nature. 

To wish to mend your ways is the word of your Perfection declaring that all 
your ways are now perfect. " As far as the east is from the west, behold, I have 
removed your transgressions from you." Forget in the altitude of your Divine 
Nature, all that never was. and never can or could be at all. "I will remember your 
iniquities no more against you." Your Perfection is all there is of you. There is 
nothing else for you to be but perfect, for just what you are you must be and cannot 
help being forever. 

The idea of futurity is a mirage of hope on the barren Sahara of vanity ; it is a 
will-o-the-wisp over the bog of nothingness, and from its dismal vistas can come only 
the malaria of despair ; it is the false seduction of the physical senses and the carnal 
mind, which are the powers' and principalities of absolute emptiness. Time is a 
deceiver, a mockery full of pledges never but vainly kept. Its greatest debt — the 
ever to-morrow, never comes. That which is going-to-be never is; only that which is 
now, ever can be. This is the Truth. You should not trust the future. Trust God, 
who is not future but now. To aim at a good thing is never to find it. To know 
that you now have the good always with you, that is to be satisfied. 

Perfection is not born of orthodox patience. To wait for God to be Good to you 
is to feed your heart on lies. To be patient — truly patient — is to know that your 
waiting is not delay, is not waiting, is only nothing at all. You cannot wait. If it 
were possible to wait for God to be Good to you, that is to answer and fulfill the 
desires of your heart, you must cease to exist. There is no such word as wait in the 
whole vocabulary of Spirit, of Man. To wait is to die; this is, impossible. There is no 
faculty of patience in God, and therefore none in Man. Theso-called patience of Godli- 
ness is pure fiction, made out of the notion that God had a plan he -was working out in 
time. This is a lie. It never was or could be true. God is done, is through, is finished, 
is perfect. To be patient for him to do more is blasphemy ; that is, pure nothingness. 

Perfection denies patience and impatience. To be impatient is to be a fool. To 
be patient is to be a slave as well as a fool. You have nothing to wait for. Know 
God and stop being patient or impatient at what you deem He has not yet done, but 
will when He feels that way. 

Now the Scriptural idea of patience is not at all the idea of waiting. God seems 
to wait to the carnal mind. He seems to be silent. He seems to be nothing, rather than 
the All. He seems to be waiting for man to be good to Him, while man seems to be 
waiting for God to be good to him. All this seeming is a lie, a nothing forever. 
There is no seeming. Truth is All there is, or ever can be. 

We do not have to wait for Truth to be Truth, for God to be God, for Man to be 
Man. The invincible necessity of Omnipotence forces Truth to be Truth, God to be 
God, Man to be Man. This is the "must be now" of" what is now." This is the 
Omnipotence of Perfection. 

Now the true idea of Patience is the Substance of Perfection. The Being, the 

_ 5 8- 



God-Substance abides, not in time, but in Eternity at the Supreme quality of a perfect, 
finished, completed Divine Nature. It never changes, but abides. Thus it never be- 
comes, but ever is. It never is less or more, but always in the perfect balance of Love, 
joy, peace, goodness and all the fruit of the Spirit. Patience sees this, knows this, since 
it is enlightened by its own luminous nature to be a witness of Itself forever. Patience 
knows nothing of time, never dreams of waiting, never changes or lapses into impatience, 
anv more than God or Alan lapses into evil. Patience never fell from its vision of Per- 
fection, any more than God or Man ever fell in Adam. 

The Scriptural word for patience means " to bear up under." This is the exact 
meaning found in the word Substance, which means to stand under, to abide, to last, 
to be. 

Patience takes no account of material things. It rests in the confidence of its 
trust in God, in Man, in All, in the Substance of Perfection. 

It is the nature of Man to abide in this Perfection, just as God does. This 
patience, Man must and cannot help possessing by birthright, because he is a partaker* 
of the Divine Nature. 

Some of the Scriptural writers seem to think that Man must wait and so be 
patient. James seemed to so teach, but he also taught work, as well as faith. But 
we know that the doctrine of works is vanity, and the idea of waiting patience is 
likewise vanity. 

Job is ever held up as a patient man. Any one who believes in the seeming 
must also be patient or wait upon their deception. They must serve their belief until 
they are tired of it and are willing to deny it. Dare to deny. Job was a master hand at 
denial, and came out as the story goes on in flying colors, because he carried out his 
denial even to the denial of his own chemicalization. Denial must deny away 
even itself, and the full bloom of the perfect yea comes out in all the luminous 
whiteness of the Shekinah, " beauty of holiness.'' 

Patience has also been said to be a submissive spirit enduring affliction. That is, 
the better the Christian, the more slavish to the tyrant of Providence he is. The one 
who best endures the torments of tempestuous and unscrupulous affairs the more grace 
God has given him. Thus it appears that grace is power to be weak to overcome or 
put away evil, but strong to endure it. This is folly. 

Power to endure trouble is to know that it is nothing. Patience denies afflic- 
tion, says — there is no affliction. 

Do not fancy you can ever love affliction. You can love only Truth in God-Man. 
Do not imagine that you will ever get grace from Spirit to endure the woe of the 
flesh. You get .wisdom from your own Divine Nature ever in God to deny away the 
perception of ail trials and difficulties. The martyrs in tortures were so full of the 
understanding of Spirit, that they never saw or felt anything of the torments, because 
they were so imbued with true patience that they saw only the white Presence of 
Jesus and His angels of love and joy. They were not submissive, but supreme in their 
knowledge of God. 

— 59 — 



The secret of Patience is the necessitous fact of Eternal Perfection. 

Paul speaks of Jesus Christ as " perfected through suffering." Be not deceived 
by mere verbal sounds and arrangements of syntax to the notion that Jesus Christ 
ever was made perfect through any suffering he endured on the cross of Calvary. 

In the first place it is wanton error to imagine that Jesus Christ the "God blessed 
forever" was ever imperfect to be made perfect through suffering. If Jesus Christ 
ever was imperfect, then God was once imperfect. Jesus Christ — the Man-God of you, 
all there is of you all — is eternally of One Substance with God the Father ; there is 
not the slightest iota of difference between them. So it is folly to imagine that He 
who was eternally perfect, was ever made so. 

In the second place, if He — Jesus Christ — suffered, then God suffers. A long- 
suffering God is an idol of fleshly sympathy, of mortal construction. If God suffers, 
He also sinned, because suffering results only from sin either of oneself or by sym- 
pathy with sin. Suffering is punishment for sin. So a suffering God is a God endur- 
ing punishment, and had better redeem Himself from hell before He offers to redeem 
anybody else. The agony of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and on Golgotha is 
but the flagrant imagination of mortal, carnal mind, which is nothing. Jesus Christ 
was God from the beginning, for "in the beginning (that is in the vast eternity) the 
Word was God." Mortal suffering is mortal belief and is pure vanity of vanities. 

We do not object at all to Paul's statement if you understand what is meant by 
" perfected through suffering," which is not perfected by suffering, but perfect in spite 
of the vanity of pain and trouble. Jesus taught that the flesh and its mind was noth- 
ing; was and is pure vanity. He practiced his doctrine by triumphing over all ideas 
of suffering. 

If Jesus had suffered in the garden and at the cross, there would have been no 
glory there. The Truth of His power and perfection was the fact of His triumph 
over the pain, misery and ignominy of being a crucified criminal by being Lord of All 
and King of kings. 

God is Perfect. Man is Perfect. God-Man is all there is. The Divine Nature is 
eternal peace and eternal joy. There is nothing at all to suffer. There is no such 
thing as pain. There is no flesh to be in trouble. There is no fleshly mind to be in 
misery. God-Man is Omnipotent Perfection. He cannot help being and abiding in 
His nature of Peace, and Power, and Love. This is Truth. Truth stands by its Al- 
mighty nature of Perfection. 

Man is not a. slave. Man is Power. Man is not submission, but clad in the 
majesty of meek glory. There is no tyrant of Man, who is Lord of Lords and 
King of Kings. Put on the purple of your Divinity ; wear the white ermine of 
your Manhood in God ; your name is Perfection, your only selfhood is I AM THA T 
I AM. 

In Science we have denial and affirmation, the nay, nay, and the yea, yea, of 
Scripture. Perfection is the glory of the conscious, and continual, and abiding yea, 

— 60 — 



yea; the denial is the existence of the yea which is by its nature an everlasting nay 
to all that is imperfect. 

Your heart beats on and on. You breathe on and on. You think on and on. It 
is your nature to have a pulse, to breathe, to think. This is the "yea" of your fleshly 
non-being ; the nay is unsaid, for in your perfect carnality it says itself. 

In Spirit, which is All, your "yea" is your Eternal Consciousness of Perfec- 
tion; your "nay" vanishes with the nothingness it annuls. 

By nature God denies in His allness that which is eternally nothing So by 
nature Man is the abiding Yea-Perfection, which is "nay" to all that is not. 

Your word is perfect. It is full of the glory of Truth. It is radiant of power. 
It is conscious and living. It is light and shines of its own nature. Its quality is satis- 
faction. Its breath is peace. Its fragrance is joy. Its law is Love. Its path is Spirit. 
Your identity is Divine. Your ll I AM" is God, Christ, Holy Spirit. Your Ego is 
the White Shekinah of Peace and Power, the ermine presence of Deity, the purple 
robe of Man, the sweet, wholesome benediction of motherhood. 

Your individuality is Oneness with God, is God-Man. Name your birthright, 
the scepter of adoption, the marriage-ring of your Divine Nature. 

Speak out from the presence and power of your conscious perfection. Speak into 
the heart of God. Commune with your own Being; enjoy the familiar acquaintance 
of the Holy One of All, for the All unifying Love of the Mighty God of Peace is shed 
abroad in your Perfect Nature — all Divine and beautiful forever. 

Let us now identify ourselves with the Divine of us and all by our perfect word 
in the / AM THA T I AM : 

i 

I AM The God All-Perfect now and forever, there is none beside Me, for I Am 
All-One. 

I AM The Spirit- All-Perfect, there is none else, for I Am All-One. 

I AM The Perfect Life, there can be nothing beside, for I Am All-One. 

I AM The Presence of Perfection, beside Me there is not anything, for I Am 
All-One. 

ii 

I AM The Christ-Man — Now-Perfect — Always Perfect — there is none other, for 
I Am All-One. 

I AM The Word-God, the Word-Man, the Dignity of Perfection, beside Me is noth- 
ing, for I Am All-One. 

I AM The Truth, the Perfect Truth, there is nothing else, since I Am All-One. 

I AM The Perfect Omnipotence, there can be no other than Me, for I Am All-One. 

in. 

I AM The Holy Spirit, the Perfect Man- Woman, there is none else beside Me, 
for I Am All-One. 

I AM The Substance-Man, the Perfect Being, the Divine Perfection, beside Me 
is there nothing at all, since I Am All-One. 

— 61 — 



I AM The Perfect-Love-Man, there is none else, for I Am All-One. 

I AM Conscious-Thinking-Perfection, the White Mind of the Divine and Perfect 
Nature, beside Me there is not anything, for I Am All-One, All-One, All-One, now, 
now, now. Amen. 

DIVINE LOVE. 

/. Cor. 13. 

If God is All in All, then surely there can be no love but Divine Love. 

If God — that is Supreme and All-Being — is Love, then we are driven to know 
that there cannot be anything but Love in the universe, for there could be nothing 
beside All-Being to be anything. 

If it is true that there is and can be nothing at all in the Eternal Universe but 
Divine Love, we all must be glad to have it made self-evident to us. 

If "the Kingdom of Heaven is within us," and if " God is Love" and is in 
Heaven, then it is a self-evident necessity that Divine Love be in us. 

If it be true that God is All as Love, then we have no choice but to be Love. If 
God be One and Indivisible as Love, then we are forced to be the whole of Love, for 
there is then nothing else we might be. 

If it is so — really so — that Omnipresence is Love — One, Indivisible Love-Pres- 
ence — then we need not try to be Love ; our recognition of our own true Being is sure 
to necessitate our perfect loving-kindness. 

To try to be Love is to act upon the premise or notion that we are not now Love. 
To act upon such an idea is to try to live up to the belief that God is not Omnipresent 
as Love. Surely if we do think that God is All-Presence as Love, we shall be obliged 
so to act, or else in fact abandon the position that' Omnipresence is Love. But if we 
are disposed to hold to this statement as actual and positive Truth — that there is no 
presence but Love-Presence — we shall not escape by simply allowing such a glorious 
proposition merely to decorate our reasonings as light, philosophical sayings, but we 
shall find ourselves forced to either carry out in fact and deed our position, or else 
abandon it as untenable. 

Furthermore, it is to be well noticed that if the statement — that All is Love — be 
true, no one can ever abandon it, for there is no choice left when we see that the 
nature of the case is that there is nothing beside the All and Indivisible Love-Presence 
that anyone can choose from. 

If anyone were at all disposed to imagine that this meant the destruction of our 
Free-Will, we are here to say that it is thoroughly self-evident that if there be any 
such thing as Divine Will it must be no other than Divine Love — which must be All 
and Indivisible. 

Now if God has Free-Will, then it is forced upon us that Omnipresence is Free- 
Will, in which case we are driven to conclude that there can be no presence that is not 
Free-Will. 

— 62 — 



If All-Presence is Free-Will, then we must be Free-Willed, for there can be 
nothing else for us to be. If Omnipresence, as Free- Will, is not divisible, we must be 
the whole of Free- Will, for we can in nowise be part of what is not divided into 
parts. 

If we imagine that Free-Will consists in the ability to choose between good and 
evil, we are obliged to give up the idea that God has Free-Will, since we would in so 
thinking be driven to the conclusion that God could choose to do and be evil. If any 
such evil faculty lingers in the Divine Nature, then God were not wholly Good, and 
we must then surrender our Deity for remodeling and self-cleansing. 

If it require any more experience than we have already had to convince us that 
evil is in its whole vain non-being total bondage, and quite the reverse of freedom, 
doubtless we shall be granted such experience as may render us of that certain 
conviction. 

If evil were bondage and not freedom, it is very self-evident that we cannot have 
free-will to do evil, since such free-will could not be otherwise than bondage. Hence, 
any necessity that forces us to do and be Good must be of the same sort of Free-Will 
that forces God to do and be Good. 

It were hard, indeed, to see how and why any force compelling us to be wise and 
good and free, driving us out of evil and bondage, obliging us to health and holiness, 
establishing in our character Divine loving-kindness, peace and joy, could be reckoned 
as a calamity, or be deemed in any sense other than a splendid fate. 

If Love is God, then we must find it to be in every way Supreme, for God must 
be Supreme in order to be God. 

We take it for granted that God — to be God — must be Supreme Being, for we 
find no idea of Divinity which does not necessitate that Deity be All-Presence, All- 
Power, All-Intelligence, One, Indivisible and Eternal. God must be Infinite Being. 

If we take it for Truth that God is All in All and One Indivisibility, our thoughts 
and words and acts must be grounded in such position. 

If God is Indivisibly All as Love, then there can be nothing else at all but Divine 
Love. 

If we see this to be a strong position to take, we cannot be surprised, for we must 
expect any position involving the whole of Deity to be a stronghold. 

If Love is All, then there can be nothing but Love, just as if God is All, there can 
be nothing but God. 

If there is nothing but Love in the whole and entire realm of universal Being, it 
befits us all to think well of All that is. 

In fact, we cannot possibly help loving All that is or can be, since there is nothing 
else we might do, if Love is God and God is All. 

We have no choice that includes anything but Love, for there is nothing else to 
include, since Love is God and All. 

If God is Love, then God can have no choice involving any state but Love. 

No amount of the best authenticated Bibles can convince any rational Being that 

-63- 



God can hate, if He is Love, for it is self-evident to all that Love can in nowise hate, 
and that Love must of necessity Love Eternally. 

If God is Love, then the only way to escape loving is to separate one's self from 
God. 

However easy any may have been led to imagine it to be — to separate one'6 self 
from God — we are here to show that it is self-evidently impossible for anyone to 
separate himself from Omnipresence. 

If there be any such thing as Divine Omnipresence, then we are forced to con- 
clude that no one can by any means get away from such Omnipresence. 

If Love is Omnipresence, we are driven to say that no one shall ever be able to 
separate himself from Love. Hence we say with the Apostle Paul — " For I am per- 
suaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, 
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
be able to separate us from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." 
(Rom. 8:38, 39). 

If we try to imagine that one might, in some measure at least, loose himself from 
Omnipresence, we were just in that measure destroying All-Presence, and interspers- 
ing it with absences. 

We may not even conclude that Divine Omnipresence as Love has spots of more 
or less degree of intensity, by which some might be more or less imbued with the 
Spirit of Love. 

If Love as Omnipresence were given to seasons or states or conditions of greater 
or less intensity, then Love as God were subject to emotions of partiality, and wholly 
unfit to occupy the throne of Justice. 

If God is All, then if there be any such thing as power, it must of necessity be 
God-Power, for there is nothing else it could possibly be. If God is All-Power as 
Love, then there can be no other power at all than Love-Power. If Love is All- 
Power, then there can be no other force or energy operating throughout the whole 
and entire Infinite Universe. 

It demands but a feeble comprehension of the nature of things to see that the 
whole and entire motive force of all physical existence, from the smallest microbe 
discovered by the lens magnifying a million times to the utmost reach of the far-search- 
ing telescope in the skies, is all due to sunlight and heat — either of our solar star or 
some other of the many millions of suns that demand our eyes. It is not so strange then 
that we find sun-worshipers, and that the True God-Spirit is often likened to the sun, 
by the Spiritually-minded of the race. They have called the heat of sunlight like the 
Divine Love, and the light of the sun they call like Divine Wisdom, for they say that 
just as sunlight and heat proceed as One to nurture and sustain all things, so Divine 
Wisdom and Love are One Omnipresence of Life and Being. 

If there is nothing but Love-Power, then it is self-evident that we are forced to 
be Love-Power. 

If Love as Power is One and Indivisible, it is necessitous that we be the whole of 

-64- 



Love-Power, for there is nothing else we can be but Love-Power, since that is All, and 
we can in nowise be part of that which is One and Indivisible into parts. 

Hence, if -we must either be the whole of Omnipotent Love or nothing, we find 
even then we are driven from any choice, since we cannot be nothing. We find that 
we have got to be. Being is the One Necessity which none of us can escape, any 
more than we can escape Omnipresence, for Being is Omnipresence. Being is God. 

If Being is Love, then we must Love. To be is to love. Just as we have no 
choice whether or not we shall Be, so we have no choice whether or not we shall Love. 
Love is force, not an invitation ; power, not a silly sentiment ; God, not an idol. 

If Love is All, then hate is an impossibility, for there could be nothing to hate. If 
it be possible to hate, then Love is not All, then Love is not God, then Love is not 
Omnipresence. We are forced either to give up the premise that Divine Omni- 
presence is Love, or else deny hate altogether. Indeed, we find that if we try to get 
rid of Divine Omnipresence as Love, to make room for hate, that even here we are 
obliged to admit the Omnipresence of Divine Love, for there is no such thing as hate- 
being, and Love Being or Divine Being is Omnipresence. 

If Love is God and God is Infinite Intelligence — that is Omniscience — then it is 
forced upon us to be convinced that All is Love Intelligence. 

Love-Intelligence is Love-Consciousness — this must be Love-Mind. 

If Love is All as Mind, then we have no choice but to know that All-Thinking 
is Divine Love. 

If All-Thinking is Love, then all our thinking must of necessity be Love-Think- 
ing, since there could be nothing else it might be. , 

If Love-Thinking is All, then there can be no such thinking as selfishness, for 
there is nothing for it to be. So we must either give up Omniscience as Love or 
deny selfishness. But we cannot give up Omniscient Love, which is God, for Divine 
Being is not a choice, but the unavoidable necessity of All that is, hence we must deny 
selfishness. 

We do not deny selfishness to get rid of it as though it were, but deny it because 
it is a necessity of our being to be Love. Any effort to deny selfishness is based upon 
the notion that there is such a thing as selfishness. It must be the nature of God to 
deny selfishness eternally, if He is Eternal Love. 

If God is All as Eternal Love, then it must be the Eternal Nature of All that is or 
can be to deny selfishness. 

Why should God make any effort to be what He is and cannot help being? Hence 
there can be no effort on the part of All Being to deny selfishness, if Love is All-Being. 

Can Love choose not to be Love? Can God choose not to be God? Is there any 
faculty in Love by which it might not be Love? Can God change? Can Love change 
to hate or selfishness? 

If Love is Omniscience, then we must know Love, for there is nothing else we 
might know. If we know Love, we cannot know fear, or hate, or selfishness. 
If we know Love, we cannot know any of the long list of sins — as hate, pride, 

-6 5 - 



selfishness, envy, jealousy, malice, revenge, cruelty. So it is written, " charity (or 
Love) covereth a multitude of sins," and "Love thinketh no evil." 

[Preached at Akron, O., Sept. 28, 1890, at C, S. Theological Seminary, 2019 Indiana Av., Chi- 
cago, 111., 'Oct. 10, 1890, and at Akron, O., Jan. 11, 1891.1 



INDIVIDUALITY.. 

Man is the image and likeness of God. God is One, therefore Man is One. If 
there are two gods, then there might be two men. There being in Truth but One 
God, there is therefore but One Man. It is just as erroneous to believe in two men, as 
to believe in two gods. 

Belief in matter has created the belief not only in two or more gods, but also 
in many men. Our physical senses are our teachers of multiplicity and variety, through 
the carnal notion of change, progress and development. Contemplation upon the One- 
ness of God — the Divine Unity — dissolves all such unreal dreams. Our material 
notion of individuality is directly opposed to the true idea of Man, who is not an in- 
dividual, but Individual — that is, cannot be divided. It is quite as unscientific to say 
— "a man," as to say — "a god." Science says — God, not "a god." Science says 
— Man, not " a man." 

We are apt to let ourselves dread to receive the doctrine of the Oneness of Man, 
founded upon the Oneness of God ; we fear it will in some way destroy our Individu- 
ality. This is the carnal nature, seeking to maintain its sham. We can never realize 
the true Manhood of Individuality in the fleshly mind and body. Belief in bodies of 
flesh and blood keeps us from understanding our true Spiritual Body, called in the 
Scripture " the Church of Christ." 

The Individuality of Man is the Oneness of Man — the Brotherhood of Man. We 
must not look upon Individuality as founded upon difference. Difference is belief in 
matter. It means many, multiplicity, change, variety, more than one. To realize In- 
dividuality we must deny difference. There is no other way. Fleshly belief claims 
that Man is dividual — that is, divisible ; but Man is Individual — that is, indivisible. 
Faith (self-evidence) reveals Man as indivisible, the image and likeness of the One 
Indivisible God. The mortal idea of Brotherhood is utterly chaotic and void, just be- 
cause it is trying to mould into Oneness that which by the very nature of its false 
existence of divisibility and multiplicity, wholly antagonizes the Divine Idea of Unity. 

Parts can never become a whole until they cease altogether their existence as parts. 

Isaac Newton advises physics to " beware of metaphysics." So my advice to 
flesh is to beware of Spirit. Fleshly man is dividual ; Man is Individual. Man is 
" One and inseparable now and forever." 

The idea of separation is wholly material. The idea of one man as separate and 
distinct from another is fleshly. It is the essence of selfishness. Only a Cain could 
say — "Am I my brother's keeper?" We well remember how Cain, with his physical 

— 66 — 



idea of selfishness, went into the land of Nod; so we have called Nod the realm of 
dreams. Nod is sleep, imagination, vanity, where is the vain abode of separation, 
selfishness, dividuality, apartness, multiplicity, and all that opposes Divine Unity, the 
Substance of the only real Brotherhood. 

One of the denials of the very ancient sages was — "There is no apartness." 
The idea that Individuality consists in separation creates schism, jealousy, envy, 
hatred, etc. Parmenides said — " The uniting principle is Love" Paul says — "Let 
there be no schism in the body." The doctrine of Love in the true Man denies all 
separation and difference. 

Some fear they shall be swallowed up in a vast oblivion of Unity. Mortality 
seems to dread to be " swallowed up of Life," as Paul puts it. If you are afraid to say 
that there are not two men ; that there is only One Man, you are ignorant, and can 
come to the understanding of Truth only by making just such a denial. Banish from 
your mind forever all fear. There is no fear in Love. If you have fear, you do not 
know God, who is Love. That fear, which keeps you from making this denial, proves 
that you need to make it to find Love, where fear is not forever. Fear makes sepa- 
ration ; Love unites. This is the way to understand Individuality, Brotherhood, the 
Oneness of Man. We find in the Scriptures no authority for there being two men. 
If there are, it is not revealed either in our hearts or in our Scriptures. Such an 
idea is wholly materialistic. We read in Genesis 1:26 — " Let us make Man," not men. 

We find that Man is spoken of as " male and female." But our mortal idea of 
male and female is fleshly. Paul's idea of the Spiritual Man is — "There is neither 
male nor female in Christ Jesus." This denies the carnal idea of difference between 
man and woman. It does not at all deny the words of Genesis that man is male and 
female in the image and likeness of God. 

The word for God — Elohim — used in this chapter is plural, not at all to indicate 
that there are two or many gods, but that God is All — that is, male and female. 

You know Science says — "God is Intelligence and God is Love." This is a plural 
expression, but it does not mean multiplicity, or even duality, or trinity — that is, 
threeness. 

The idea of male and female, in Truth, is not that of difference or separation, 
but of Oneness in Love and Wisdom. Because fleshly man has held the belief that 
man and woman are two, and different in mind and body, we find the race ever in the 
turmoil of marriage relations. Nothing but the true idea of Oneness will ever settle 
the trouble. 

Jesus says — " They neither marry nor are given in marriage in the Kingdom of 
Heaven." This is not because man and woman are not one, but because they are 
Eternally One, and therefore Eternally married. As long as there are marriages there 
must be divorces ; for to marry is to act upon the idea that they are not already married. 

True marriage consists in the understanding that man and woman are eternally 
married, "are as the' angels in Heaven." 

Let nobody imagine that this means free-love, which really is no love at all. 

-67- 



" What God hath joined together let no man put asunder." Whatever God does 
is done eternally. All marriage by God is done already. To deny the mortal, fleshly 
notion of marriage will reveal the eternal fact of the Divine Oneness of man and 
woman. 

The idea that State and National legislatures can ameliorate the marriage prob- 
lem must forever vanish from the mind of every true Christian. 

Nor must anyone try to settle the difficulty by violating the laws and customs. 
Never let slip from your mind that the only method is the " power of the word." 

Free-love-ism, Mormonism, Celibacy, divorce laws, etc., are all so many external 
means of doing what can be brought to pass only by the Word of Truth. Speak the 
Truth to be free. Paul says — '* By the mouth confession is made unto salvation." 
There is no other way. 

No amount of wise study of political economy will ever settle the labor problem. 
The whole system of Mammon is founded upon a false premise, and can no more stand 
than a house built on sand. Our laws of money are made in view of the false axiom 
that Man is selfish. Such an axiom is quite untrue, and fails to secure peace and safety 
and satisfaction. 

We must change the premise. We must take the true statement. Man is not 
selfish ; he is the image and likeness of God, whose whole nature is to give. There is 
no selfishness in God, who is Love and who is All. 

All mankind is One in Love. There is no financial greed. Man does not love 
money ; he loves God. This is true. Man loves himself, because he is One with God. 
There is no such thing as selfishness at all. Man does not favor anything, or anybody. 
God is no respecter of persons. Man is no respecter of persons. There are no persons 
to respect. You cannot say anything of Man which you cannot say of God, for they 
are One. 

It is sheer vanity to make laws against monopoly ; to seek to coerce capital by 
strikes ; to starve out labor by controling and cornering the market ; to fight selfish- 
ness into Love and Unity. It is vain, because we are acting upon the idea that capital 
and labor are not one in interest and aim and essence. We hold in our minds the idea 
of conflict and antagonism ; so no amount of effort can bring peace. 

We start right. Man is One in All. This statement held to in the heart will 
settle all warfare of money and ambition. There is no other way. 

God is All-Love. There is nothing at all but Love. There is no hate, no ani- 
mosity, no strife, no struggle, no warfare, no ambition, no poverty, no weakness, no 
anything but Love, Love, Love. 

Your words do not make this so. It is so. It always was so. It is true. There 
never was anything but Love. If it were not so, you could never make it so. But it 
is so, and nothing can ever make it not so forever. 

You know that All is Love. You always knew it. You can never know any- 
thing against it. There is no law against love, joy, peace — the fruit of the Spirit of 
Love and Truth. 

— 68 — 



God is All Knowledge. He is Love. Therefore, there is no other knowledge than 
Love. There is no knowledge of hate, strife, woe, bitterness. Love is All. Love 
always was All. and always will be All. 

You do not say that All is Love to make it so. You could not make it so, because 
it is so. Your word does not change anything. Your word is true, and Truth never 
changes anvthing. Truth is changeless. 

All Being is One. is Individual, is God, is Man ; God, Christ, Holy Spirit is the 
Divine Existence. This is the only Existence there is. This is absolute Individuality 
— that is, perfect Oneness. 

In knowing Individuality we understand the Unity of the Trinity. The mortal, 
fleshly home comes nearest to symbolizing the idea of the Trinity — the father, mother 
and child making a three in one. But absolute Reality does away with all symbols. 
We, in Truth, must say that there is no such thing as a symbol. God is All. God is 
not a symbol, therefore there is no symbol at all. A symbol is nothing, so it is not, 
never was, and never will or can be at all. 

If you mean by Trinity the idea of threeness, then there is no Trinity. If you 
mean by Unity any idea of number, singleness, aloneness, apartness, separateness, then 
there is no Unity. But there is a Trinity in Unity. It is God, Christ, Holy Spirit in 
One. 

To make any distinction or difference in this statement of Divine Existence is 
wholly unthinkable and impossible. We may say this much to put your idea in the 
right way of understanding the Unity and Trinity of Being. We have in Science the 
yea, yea, and the nay, nay — the affirmation and the negation. Now if you see it — the 
Unity of God is the affirmation, the Trinity of God is the denial. 

If you hold any idea of number when you say ; ' God is One," you do not declare 
the Unity or Individuality of God. One as a number means not two or three, etc. But 
One as Divine Existence means Power, against which there is no resistance at all. 

So, also, if you hold the idea of number when you say — "God is Trinity" — you 
<lo not declare the Divine Word of the God-Christ-Holy Ghost. The Trinity means — 
God is All. 

We have, in Truth, freed our mind of the vain " law of opposites." It is an un- 
thinkable mystery to imagine that we know white by its being contrasted with black ; 
or Good from its being the opposite of evil ; or knowledge from its being the opposite 
of ignorance ; or something from its being the opposite of nothing. There is no such 
law of contrast. There never was or can be anything but Good, for God is, was, and 
ever will be All in All. 

We say that God is Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, and we hold no 
idea of time, space, or number. Omni, All, is the Oneness, which unites the Trinity of 
Presence, Power, and Knowledge. Since these are One, the Trinity has in it no idea 
of three at all. Presence as One and All does not mean space or time or place ; it is Pure 
Existence. Presence is not understood by absence. It exists of and by its own nature and 
being as Presence. If there ever was, or could be, such a state as absence, then Pres- 

-69- 



ence were mere nothingness. But absence is pure vanity. Presence is Absolute 
Reality. God, the Eternal Good, is Omnipresence. 

Power does not mean the ability to overcome resistance. Such an idea of Power 
is wholly material. Power means that there is no opposition, no resistance at all. All- 
Power means such as by its nature is not opposed, never was, and never can be. 

Material power is nothing. Its nature is chaos and violent. Its existence is in 
confusion, and the preying upon some other similar and weaker power. It is power by 
virtue of there being some weaker power to be violated. Such an idea of power is 
utterly nothing. It never was. It could never be. It is not forever. All-Power is 
Spirit. There is none else. Love is the only Power there is. " Against such there 
is no law." Love is the uniting principle. It is true Power. Unity is Strength. 
Love is Unity. Omnipotence is Love. Power is the only Presence. There is no ab- 
sence of Power. There is no weakness. Fear is weakness. Love casts out fear, 
because Love is All and there is no fear, and there is no weakness. Power, Love, Pres- 
ence is All forever. 

God is Mind. God is Power. God is Presence. Mind is Power. Presence of 
Mind is All-Power. Man is Mind, just as God is. Man is Power, just as God is. 
Man and God is One, not two. There is no idea of number in the Oneness of Man- 
God. Man is Presence of Mind, that is Power, just as God is forever. We cannot 
help this being true now. 

God is Omnipresence, Omnipotence, and Omniscience — that is, God is Trinity. 
God, Christ, Holy Ghost means the Unity and Trinity of Divine Mind. We may say 
— God is Omnipresence ; Christ is Omnipotence ; Holy Ghost is Omniscience. They 
are All in One. We may say — Life, Truth, and Love is the Trinity. But All is One. 
We may say, Father, Son, and Mother. But we still mean the Trinity in Unity, 
and the Unity in Trinity. We may say — Spirit, Word, Substance is the Trinity ; but 
each is All and All is each. For Trinity is Unity, and Unity is Trinity. The Eternal 
Individuality of Man is God, Christ, Holy Spirit. Individuality is Unity and Trinity. 
Man is Unity and Trinity. Having said God, Christ, Holy Ghost faithfully, you can- 
not but understand and realize the Individuality of God-Man. God is the only "7 
AM " — the only Ego. Man is the only "7 AM" — the only Ego. Man is the only 
God. God is the only Man. There is but One "7 AM" — but one Ego — that is God- 
Man. 

There is no second being in the Universe. There is but One Being. All-Being 
is Ego, "7 AM." "I AM THAT I AM" is the name of God-Man. "I AM in the 
Father and the Father in me." This " Me " calls himself the "7 AM;" so it reads — 
"I AM in the Father and the Father in 7 AM" "Philip saith, show us the Father." 
"Hast thou not known me Philip?" " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father 
also." " How sayest thou then, show us the Father?" 

Jesus taught the Unity and Trinity of Divinity in these words — " Straight is the 
gate and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it." The " few " means One. 
The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of One God. The Kingdom of Man is the 

— 7° — 



Kingdom of 0?ic Man. There is but One Kingdom of Being, it is the Kingdom of 
Spirit, of God-Man. There is no other at all. There never was any other ; there 
never can or could be any other but the One Kingdom of Good, of Spirit, of God- 
Man ; for this Kingdom is All in All, from everlasting to everlasting, " I AM THA T 
I AM." 

The doctrine of Individuality states that there is but One Man. To imagine that, 
because Man is One, He is lonely, is to conceive of Oneness as number. God is One, 
and God is not lonesome. Man is One, and Man is not alone, apart, separate, or lone- 
some. There is no such thing as number at all. Number is multiplicity, variety, 
change. This is mortal, material. The sands of the sea, the hairs of the animal world, 
the water drops of the cosmos, the points of sunlight are numbered. All these things 
are the symbology of material and intellectual mathematics. But Spirit is All, and 
these things are nothing, never were, and never can be at all forever. 

The false flash of intellectual mathematics can never be at all in the true glory of 
revelation, -which is Spirit, God, Man, eternally the All-One. In the language of mor- 
tality, -we find three personal pronouns. But in the Spiritual tongue there is but One 
Being, who is never called " thou," or "you," or he, or she, or it. Let no one say 
" thou" to the "7 AM THAT I AM;" let no one say he, she, or it to the "I AM 
THA T I AM." The only answer to prayer is "7 AM THAT I AM," for prayer 
is affirmation, the yea, yea, "7 AM" of Scripture. 

Let no one imagine that the doctrine of Individuality conflicts with the Bible 
command, which reads — "Forget not the assembling of yourselves together." 
" Where two or three are met together in my name, there '7 AM' 1 in the midst of 
them." If we remain away from the " communion of the Saints," it is not because we 
understand the doctrine of Individuality, of Brotherhood, of Oneness, but rather be- 
cause we believe in the separation, the aloneness, the apartness of mortality. 

The understanding of the Divine Unity in God-Man dissolves selfishness, differ- 
ences, weak notions of personal independence, and ignorant susceptibility to having 
our feelings hurt. The healing doctrine of Individuality cures all those who are 
chronic invalids as to their personal sympathies and feelings. 

When Jesus said, " In my Father's house are many mansions," he did not deny the 
Unity or Individuality of Man, but showed that the idea of Divine Oneness excludes 
all meaning of number; of intellectual mathematics in general. "Many mansions" 
means all abiding-place ; that there is no other dwelling-place at all besides the All- 
Kingdom of God-Man. The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Man, is the "7 AM 
THA T I AM." 

Jesus said — " That where 7 AM there ye may be also." " Z AM" is the only 
consciousness, the All-Consciousness. Whatever Jesus Christ said of himself we 
must each say of ourselves and all together. He says — "Keep my sayings" — "I 
keep the sayings of God." "7 AM in the Father and the Father in '7 AM: " "If 
ye keep my sayings, ye shall never see death. "Therefore, let us now keep the sayings 

— 71 — 



of Jesus, for these are His words. Thus—" I AM THAT I AM," is the saying "of 
Jehovah, that is Jesus Christ, in the Old Testament. 

i. 

I AM THAT I AM. 

I AM God— Spirit— Life— All-Present. 

I AM Christ— Word— Truth— All -Powerful. 

I AM Holy Ghost — -'Substance — Love — All-Intelligent. 

I AM All in One and One in All, now and forever — so it is. 

I AM THAT I AM; beside " I AM" there is none else at all forever. 

ii. 

I AM God— Christ— Holy Ghost— All in One. 

I AM Spirit — Word — Substance — All in One. 

I AM Life— Truth— Love— All in One. 

I AM All-Presence, All-Power, All-Intelligence, All in One. 

I AM THAT I AM, now, now, now. 

in. 

I AM The Healing God — The Healing Spirit — The Healing Life — The All-Pres- 
ence of Health. 

I AM The Healing Christ— The Healing Word— The Healing Force— The All- 
Healing Power of Truth. 

I AM The Holy, Healing Ghost — The Healing Baptism — The Health-Substance — 
The Healing Mother — The Healing Heart — The Healing Mind — The Healing Love. 

I AM THAT I AM, Health, Healing, Holiness — Sweet, Wholesome, Happy, 
Healing Health. 

I AM THAT I AM, Eternal Health, Healing Life— Healing Truth— Healing Love. 

It is finished ; my demonstration is now instantaneous. 

{Preached at 200 E. Market St., Akron, O., June 15, 1890.] 



MAN-WOMAN. 



Man is One. Woman is One. Man-Woman is One. There is no difference in 
the universe. Man and Woman are not different. Man is Woman. Woman is Man. 
Man- Woman is God. 

To believe in gender is to commit adultery. To hold such belief is to be punished 
by bondage in lust and fleshly passion, together with their kin diseases. The appetites 
of sense give rise to birth and death. The birth-place and the grave are one vanity. 
To be born into the flesh is to die just as to be born out of it is to die. Wash off this 
lie of lust. Be clad in your native purity. Be not ashamed. Man-Woman is pure. 

God is not sexual, neither is Man, neither is Woman. Only the race of Adam 
believes in the lustful passions and sensual appetites of sexuality. Man- Woman is 
One, is married. Being married, there is no more becoming unmarried than there is 



of God's being no longer One. Being married, to marry again is to commit adultery. 
•• What God hath joined together let no man put asunder." Marriage — that is the 
eternal Oneness of God, of Man-Woman — is the Divine, Necessitous Law of Being, 
which is absolutely unbreakable. Marriage is Omnipotent ; divorce is nothing. 

All marriage being eternally finished by Omnipotent Deity, any more or other 
marrying must be merely belief in divorce. Such error is vanity, for marriage is all 
and there is no divorce. This Law is forever. Be -wise enough to say there is no 
divorce, instead of declaring that there is no marriage. Marriage is, as God is, as 
Man-Woman is. Divorce is not forever. Because Marriage is All, we must say 
that there is no marrying. Marrying necessitates divorcing, for there could be no 
unmarried ones to enter matrimony, except there were divorcing. To say that Man 
and woman are not One is to commit divorce or adultery. There is no divorce or 
adultery, for Marriage is All. 

Children do not believe in marrying or divorcing, because they are married — for 
with them Man-Woman is One. "Except ye become as little children, ye can in 
nowise enter the Kingdom of Heaven," for " they neither marry, nor are given in mar- 
riage in the Kingdom of Heaven." 

God is called Father, not at all because He begets children, but because He has 
faith in Himself. God is called Mother, not at all because of any sexuality in His 
nature by which He satisfies lust and bears babes of passion, but because He loves 
Himself. God is called Son, not at all because a dual sex, inspired of fleshly beat, 
gave birth to Him, but because His faith in Himself is His love of Himself, and so His 
faith is loving and His love is faithful, ever to be called meekness in children, for it is 
written of Deity — " I AJfmeek and lowly in heart." Thus God is in Heaven because 
He is as a little child. God is One, is married. I Am That I Am One, married. My 
Home is Heaven, is Spirit. 

When Jesus Christ told the parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, he compared it 
to a state of marriage — not marrying but already in the married state. See how his 
words read out this true and perfect meaning — " All things are ready , come unto 
the marriage." 

This were indeed a horrible doctrine, if it taught that there were no marriage. 
But it is a gospel of glad, good news when we see its word is that — there is no single- 
ness, no widowhood, no bachelorhood, no divorce, no marrying. Who cannot see 
that the idea of marrying to a married man or woman is but divorce, and that divorce 
is nothing but adultery ? Free-Love says — there is no Marriage. Free-Love is adultery, 
for Adam cannot love except in adultery. Truth says — there is no divorce, no marrying; 
All is Marriage. In Divine Being " we live and move and have our being." Hence 
God is our home. Marriage makes the home. The Spirit-Home is Heaven — this is 
true marriage, in which state of Mind, Man-Woman is One. The only state of Being 
is the married state, or the Supreme Being of Divine Unity. There is no separation, 
no apartness, no loneliness, no divorce. 

The name of God is li I AAf." Hence the true word for every Being is — I Am 

— 73 — 



All-One, that is I Am Married, for God is in Heaven, is Heaven, is One, is All, is 
Married. Marriage is All, is Good, is Supreme Being. There is no marrying, no 
divorce. The marriage state is true virginity. Man- Woman is One Virgin. A virgin 
is one who cannot marry, being now consciously married. Adam is never a virgin. 
Eve is never a virgin. Flesh is all adultery ; there is no flesh ; there is no adultery. 
All is Virginity. If man could ever be separate from woman, there might be adul- 
tery. Because Adam imagines that man is one sex and woman another, therefore the 
flesh-race indulges the vain notion of adultery. But both Adam and his empty 
dreams are pure nothingness, hence thr I AM SPIRIT knows that Man-Woman is 
eternally One and Married, and that there is not and never was or can be any such 
vanity as adultery. 

All Being is Supreme, since anything less than Being cannot be at all. Husband 
and Wife is One Being, is Supreme Being. One of the names of Divine Being is 
"Jehovah-Jireh." This means — " The Self-Existent Provider," which is plainly 
enough — "The Self-Being Husband." So we see the meaning of the saying — "Thy 
Maker is thy Husband." This same word — Jehovah-Jireh — means " The Self-Seeing 
Being." • Now knowing is seeing by faith. Thus the Ego of Knowledge is the Holy 
Spirit of Truth. This is called the Mother-God, which is the Divine Wife, and called 
the Bride of Jesus Christ as the Church of Love. So we see that in the name Jehovah- 
Jireh, the Husband and Wife is One. Thus we come again to our eternal fact that 
Man-Woman is One God, Supreme and Holy Married Being. 

To deny marriage is to deny the Home. You might as well attempt to dethrone 
Deity. Heaven is our Home. Let this be rigidly kept in mind — that marriage is not 
marrying, any more than Being is becoming. To marry is to act upon the false notion 
that one is not married. Just as becoming can never be, so marrying can never reach 
marriage. To divorce is to imagine that what God Almighty has joined together, 
flesh can put asunder. The Oneness of Divine Being is Omnipotence, which there 
is no power to divide. . Marriage is necessitous Being; it is the All-Power of Love, 
''against which there is no law." Marriage is All ; there is no divorce. 

To imagine the fleshly home capable of being or yielding any of the " fruit of 
the Spirit" is putting confidence in that which is not and never can be. Do not think 
that you lose anything by denying away the carnal idea of marrying. We gain all 
things in the law of Married Spirit. If you do not understand the nothingness of 
marrying and divorcing, and the allness of marriage, your only way is to say " I am 
married" until you do perceive your true and eternal state of supreme marriage. 

The true church never marries. The body of Christ is the Bride of Christ. In 
the mind of the church there is no unconsciousness of marriage. Jesus Christ never 
married anybody. His bride is His body — the Church. He was never unmarried. He 
knew there was no divorce and no marrying. JHe taught that all in the Kingdom 
of Heaven are as the angels — not at all unmarried, but in a true and eternal Married 
Being. To be married a thousand times by Adam counts for nothing either for or 
against the true and omnipotent Law of Marriage. So do not let your heart be 

— 74 — 



IHBMHI^HM^^H^H 



troubled by any circumstances which Adam has thrown about your flesh. Your mar- 
riage bv your Eternal Being is now and changeless. 

Celibacy is sheer vanity. It is the error of asceticism. Its seed of fault con- 
sists in saying there is no marriage, instead of knowing the Truth that there is no 
singleness, no marrying, no divorce. It is just as much of an error to believe in 
celibacy as in marrying. Both are forms of adultery. 

What shall you do, since you can neither marry nor be single ? This you must do 
— declare by the word of your mouth — "I am married" This is neither marrying nor 
remaining single. Remember with perfect and absolute certainty that in the zvord is 
your whole power. Without the word you can do nothing, with it you can do all 
things. The Word says — "All power is given unto Me, both in heaven and on earth." 
Let us see just what this sentence means in Science. This we can come at only by 
the Spirit of Truth, which enlightens the eyes of our Spirit; that is, breathes into 
us faith in our "I AM." As the passage stands it counts for nothing as a living 
energy in our Being. But by the Holy Spirit of Common Sense, we know how to 
read its abundant value. Thus — " heaven" always means "love" — this means wife, 
or woman, or bride, or Divine Being. "Earth" always means wisdom, man, husband, 
Divine Being. Power is necessitous Being. " Given " indicates that we have a thing 
or quality by nature, as a gift of poesy, or tongues, etc. The " me " is the Divine 
Logos, the Supreme Word, the eternal " I AM" God, Man-Woman. So the passage 
reads thus — "I am and must be Supreme Being, as Man-Woman in Married State, as 
One and All-Being." 

We may say that the " I am " is the Husband, and the Good and True words of 
Spirit put after it is the Wife. Thus we see, Man-Woman is one. Besides, we then 
see why the Bride of Jesus Christ is the Body of Jesus Christ. Woman is the 
Body of Man, just as the Church is the Body and Bride of Christ. Now this does not 
make any distinction between the Man-I AM and the Woman-Body at all, but 
rather enforces and amplifies the full Marriage of Man-Woman. Swedenborg takes 
extraordinary pains to explain the eternal State of Marriage and the woes of its non- 
being in the faith or perception of the race. He agrees with all the spiritual and quite 
true thinkers who called marriage the oneness of love and wisdom. This has been 
long known as a pretty philosophy, but only the Spirit can reveal its true and prac- 
tical value and nature. 

Adam has never lacked for beautiful figures setting forth the nature of the mar- 
riage state. But the age of symbols is done. We now behold the Bride of Christ 
descend in power and visibility, as the Eternal word is spoken out in Omnipresence. 

Do not forget that Christian Science holds that marriage is, that the married state 
is absolutely necessitous, that naone can exist except in the Eternal State of Marriage 
or Oneness. Because this is Truth, no external act can ever bring it to pass. Our acts 
must, to be right and true, recognize this necessitous and thoroughly self-evident 
fact. But our recognition of this Truth does not make it true, only our acceptance 
of what is ever true and cannot but be so. 

— 75 — 



Being is One. How can anything be less than one, and be at all ? Partly God, 
is not God. Partly Man, is not Man. This Oneness of Being must be Its Allness 
also, for Being cannot be either more or less than One, and since It cannot be more 
than One, we see that the One must be All. Now this All-Oneness is the State of 
Marriage. It is self-evident, because we see that according to the nature of Being it is 
so. It is necessitous because we know that from the nature of Being it must be so. 
No one of common sense ever supposed that the ceremony of marriage is at all what 
constitutes true Marriage. 

Oneness in Nature, Oneness by Love, Oneness of Mind, Oneness in Life, Oneness 
in All the Being of Man-Woman is the only Marriage there ever can be. Such One- 
ness cannot admit of any possibility of divorce. Such Oneness is Eternal, without 
beginning, without ending. No one has any Christian sanction for going through a 
marriage ceremony, unless that one understands in his heart and mind that any such 
Adam-ordinance is totally void of all efficacy whatsoever. 

The ordinance of marriage is a mere recognition of the eternal fact of Being that 
Man-Woman is forever one and not separable. As such, no one need quarrel with any 
such custom Adam may use. We are called to peace. We know the Truth, and 
stand fast. 

This, which we now declare, is a mighty Truth. He that hath ears let him hear. 
This is the teaching — Duality, twoness; choice between two is a symbol, and means 
Necessity; that is, Omnipotence. This symbol of pairs permeates every fiber and atom 
of the Adam cosmos. As a symbol, it is nothing. ' 

We say — I must either be or not be. This seems like a choice, but it is not, for 
I must be; since I Am, I have no choice but to be. So the duality, seemingly involved, 
is really not there at all, for there is but one State, namely, of Being, because I must 
be, since I Am. There cannot be a choice, unless there be more than One. But One 
is All there is or can be; hence there can be no choice. Thus the notion of Duality is a 
mere figure of flesh, and the Truth it would hide (were it at all) is the Necessity of 
All-Being-One. This is the nature of the Buddhistic Word of Omnipotence, which 
has been translated " The All-Sided-One." You may read in the sacred books of this 
sect the many wonderful works which this mighty word of Necessity performs for the 
faithful. The All-Being-One is the Married State, and there is no other state at all. 
Since this is Omnipotent Being, how can it be broken ? 

We read of the marriage supper of the Lamb. Do not let your ears be closed by 
symbols. "Supper" means eating, which means speaking; that is, thinking, the state 
of consciousness, or conscious Being. "Lamb" means affirmation; that is, the word of 
the good and the true. No one is so blind as not to see that putting words after our 
I Am is identifying ourselves with our words; this is clearly marriage. So we know 
that the marriage supper of the Lamb is the speaking with our heart and mind, true 
and good words after our I Am. " Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of 
1 my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O, Lord ! my Strength and my Redeemer." 

Blessed is that One who so keeps white, pure, holy, sacred his I Am, clothing upon 

- 7 6- 



it a body, a nature, a wife, a set of affairs and conditions that are full of peace and joy 
and love eternal. We read that Jesus Christ wrought his first great work at a mar- 
riage feast in Cana of Galilee. We never read that Jesus Christ denied marriage, 
though He did positively deny marrying and divorcing. 

The water made wine means that the cleansing thinking of denial leaves the pure, 
rich, living consciousness of Life. At Cana of Galilee is seen from the meaning of these 
two words — Cana, which is cane or staff, and Galilee, which is wheel — thus the staff 
or spoke of the revolving wheel of mortal affairs is to marry and to divorce, but the 
clean water baptism puts this process away and we see the living Spirit of Eternal One- 
ness, which is the Substance of the Married State of Being. 

This is His first miracle according to John, because the first notion which the 
water of pure thinking vanishes is the lustful passion and sensual appetite of the race 
of Adam. The fleshly life claims to originate in lust. But the wine of Life is the 
Spirit of Purity, by which only can there be any such thing as Holy Marriage. We 
need not be told what destroys the Eden of the Home. We understand why the water 
must be wine, if there be any true Marriage. Life is not flesh, but Spirit. Marriage 
is the Oneness of Spirit; the vanity of the flesh takes care of itself. 



FAITH. 

If Life is All, it is self-evident that you must be Life, for there is then nothing 
else for you to be. If Eternity is All, or Infinite, it is self-evident that you are forced 
to be Eternal, for there is nothing else for you to be. If Eternal Life is All, it is self- 
evident that you are Eternal Life, for there is nothing else that you might be. If it is 
self-evident that you are Eternal Life, then it is self-evident that you are immortal 
and must live forever. , If it is self-evident that you are immortal, then you cannot help 
believing that your Life is Eternal, and that you always lived and always will live. 

If Truth is All, then it is self-evident that you are Truth, since there could be 
nothing else for you to be J If there were anything besides the Truth, it is self- 
evident that it could not be Truth, and therefore must be false or nothing. Thus it is 
self-evident that if you are not the Truth, you are nothing. But since it is self- 
evident that you are, you are forced to be the Truth. 

If Love is Truth and you are Truth, it is self-evident that you are obliged to be 
Love. If Love is All, it is self-evident that you are compelled to be Love, since there 
is nothing else for you to be. If Love is All, you cannot hate. If God is Love, and 
God is All-Power, then it is self-evident that Love is the All-Power. Hence if you 
have any power, it must be to Love, for there is no other power but Love for you to 
be or to have. If Love is God and God is All-Presence, then there can be no Presence 
but Love. If then you are a Presence at all, it is self-evident that you are compelled 
to be Love-Presence. If you are no Presence, you are self-evidently nothing. If then 

— 77 — 



you are convinced that you are at all, you must see that you are Love. To hate is to 
forget that you are. An angry person must be beside himself; that is, non est. 

If God is Infinite — that is, All, it is self-evidnet that you must be God, for there is 
nothing else for you to be. If God is Truth, then it is self-evident that all not-God 
is not-Truth, that is, not-Real — that is, not at all. Hence if you are not God, you are 
self-evidently nothing. If you are nothing, it is self-evident that to you there can be 
no God, for God is not the God of nothing. 

If God is Omnipresent, it is self-evident that for you to be any presence at all, 
you are necessitously God, for there is no Presence but the God-Presence that you 
can be. If God is Omniscience, it is self-evident that you must be Intelligence, for 
there is nothing but Intelligence that you can be. There is then no ignorance for you 
to be, and so it is self-evident that you cannot say truly — I Am ignorant, for you must 
say — I Am Intelligence, since there is nothing else for you to be. 

If Christ is All, then you are self-evidently Christ, since there is nothing else for 
any one to be. If the Holy Spirit is Infinite — that is All, there is nothing else for you 
to be, and so you are forced self-evidently to be the Holy Ghost. If you fear to say, I 
Am God, it is self-evident that you imagine that God is not Infinite or All. God, 
Who is Love, never causes fear, for Love casts out fear. So, if you are afraid, it is 
because you do not say, I Am Love-God, for any who says such words cannot fear. 
If Love is All, it is self-evident that there can be no fear, for there is no fear in Love. 
So to fear is not to say, I Am Love. 

If God is All and Health is God, then it is self-evident that you must be Health, 
for there is nothing else that anyone can be. If God is All-Presence, then All-Pres- 
ence is Health; hence it is self-evident that you are forced to be Health, for there is no 
other Presence which you might be. If you should forget that Health is All- 
Presence, you would then imagine that there were some sick presence, some presence 
of disease. Such a mistake "would make you ill, but to keep in mind that All-Presence 
is God and that God cannot be sick, and that there can be no other presence, forces 
you to be Health. If All is Truth, it is self-evident that All must be Health, since 
Truth cannot be sick. All sickness is nothing, because it is not Truth, which is self- 
evidently Health. 

If God is Rich and Infinite or All, then it is self-evident that you are Rich, since 
there is nothing but Richness for you to be. If you could be poor, then either God 
is poor or not All in All. 

We have been speaking of certain self-evident Truths. Whenever anyone says 
anything that is self-evident, he convinces, for all are forced to admit a self-evident 
fact. If anyone were to deny a self-evident Truth, such an one must be unreasonable. 
No one can really in himself refuse to see that -which is self-evident; even though he 
may reject it, still he knows that he is rejecting the Truth, and this only makes him 
really believe it all the more. So we know that the self-evidence of Truth is that 
quality of Its nature which forces belief in it and in fact acceptance of it. This 
self-evidence compels trust. Thus we see that self-evidence is faith. Self-evidence is 

_ 7 S- 



that which convinces yourself — that is, self-conviction — self-proof, self-persuasion. 
That is why the Greek word in our Bible translated " faith " means " to convince" — 
"to persuade.'' 

If you are convinced that God is All-Presence, you are forced to have perfect 
faith in your presence, because it is self-evident that your presence must be Divine 
Presence, for there is no other presence at all. This self-evidence is the power oi 
faith and you do not believe in or fear any sick or evil presence. The word faith, known 
to be self-evidence, is redeemed from the bondage of cant. Whatever is self-evident is 
full of the power of faith. It is the power of faith, because we recognize the neces- 
sitous nature of self-evidence, for it convicts perforce, and there is no sort of nature 
that can resist its imperative evidence. To reject self-evidence is to dethrone your 
own identity, to abdicate your own consciousness, to cease to be, which is sheer 
impossibility. 

Xo man can succeed in anything, if he distrusts his own ability. If you are not 
convinced that God is Omnipresent, you cannot feel sure that you are God. To know 
self-evidently that All-Presence is One Divine Presence — namely, God — is to succeed 
in the perfect and necessitous confidence that your only and entire Being must be 
Divine. If you do not succeed in being God, your Life must be a failure, for your 
Life is obliged to be God or nothing, for be'side Divinity there is nothing to be. If 
you live by faith, it must be self-evident to you that All-Life is God, and your Life is 
God, and that beside your God-Life you are and can be nothing. If you are convinced 
that your Life is God, you cannot ever think that it may be cut off by death, for it is 
self-evident to you that God or Life cannot die, since Life is Eternal. If it is self- 
evident to you that your Life is God, you are forced to have a free and happy and 
healthy Life, since God or Life is and must be free and happy and healthy. 

It is self-evident that nothing can more than be and also that nothing can less than 
be: that is, Being is not graded into degrees, scales, rank. There is no aristocracy in 
Being. There is no " better than thou," or inferiority in Being. One Being is All 
Being, and All Being is Supreme Being — this is self-evident. When the disciples 
asked Jesus — " Who should be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven ?" he said, 
"Except ye become as a little child ye can in nowise enter the Kingdom of Heaven." 
Little children know nothing of rank, superiority, or inferiority. With them All 
Being is Supreme Being. 

Therefore, it is self-evident that your Being is Supreme Being. Your Being is 
your God. If your Being is not your God, then there is no God for you, since your 
Being is All there can be to you or for you. There is no such God as an external 
God. God is your own Being or nothing. This is self-evidence. If you are sure of 
" the Kingdom of Heaven within you," then you see self-evidently that your God is 
your own Being. If you have an external God, you are worshiping an idol. Evi- 
dence that is external cannot be self-evidence, for the self of us is wholly internal. 
External evidence is no evidence at all, for evidence that is not to yourself is noth- 

— 79 — 



ing. Since all evidence must be self-evidence, we see that faith must be in yourself. 
What man is good for anything who has no faith in himself? 

Some may imagine that faith in one's self is conceit or pride, but this is not true, 
for pride is not at all depending upon our true internal nature, but rather relying upon 
our externals — such as our brains, our money, our friends, our education, which things 
are not our own Being but the mere husk of it, and are the merest vanity and 
nothingness. 

The word " father" as used in the Bible means " faith." Abraham is called the 
" father of a multitude," because he stands for faith or self-evidence. We read that 
when the Old Testament speaks of dying, it uses the expression — "gathered to his. 
fathers," — because " according to thy faith, so be it unto thee." You shall go to the 
heaven you have faith in or that is self-evident to you. Solomon says — " as a tree 
falleth, so it lieth." 

No man can be convinced of that which is not self-evident. Conviction is ot 
axiomatic evidence, as it reaches the notice and approval of our Self-hood, our Being, 
our Identity. The physical senses cannot produce any self-evidence, because they do 
not carry information to our Self-Being. If the physical senses were our criterion of 
self-evidence, then -we must soon be cut off from self-evident information, since our 
fleshly senses are surely temporal. 

The light of self-evidence illumines our True Being. If we are convinced that 
God is Light and that God is Omnipresence, we are forced by self-evident conviction 
to see that we are Light and cannot be darkness or blind, since there is nothing else 
for us to be. This obliges us to shine and recognize our Being as visible and know- 
able, and no longer an invisible mystery. If you were without the self-evidence to 
see that God is All as Light, how shall you get that self-evident necessity which is 
the power of faith to drive you from your blindness, or deafness, or disease? Is it 
not self-evident that thinking over and over and over anything will make it self-evi- 
dent to you? If you meditate upon any Truth incessantly, its self-evidence soon forces 
itself upon your nature. Choose then the good thing you desire to have and meditate 
and speak it — if you choose well your self-evidence is Good. 

If you think there is any such Being as you claim by your presence, words, and 
acts to be, say — " I Am, I know I Am. If I know nothing else, at least it is very 
self-evident to me that I know I Am." This will put Being and Identity into you, and 
cure you of any cringing, self-mean feeling, that may have fastened its false way upon 
your thinking, and branded your face and efforts with inferiority, so that you are never 
able to do anything as you want to. 

If you would like to be convinced that God is Omnipresence, you must say con- 
tinually and think incessantly that " God is All." You can be sure that you are con- 
vinced of this Truth, -when it is self-evident to you that because God is absolutely All, 
you do not fear to say and feel forced to say — that you are and must be God. When 
you love to say — "I Am God, Christ, Holy Ghost " — your faith in the Allness and 
Oneness of Divine Being is as it should and must be. 

— 80 — 



Speaking true words is praying. Your good desires are sure to be true words. If 
vou would like to know that Health is All and that there is no more sickness, you must so 
pray. The secret of faith is obtaining the self-evidence of Good and Truth as All, 
b>y praying or declaring it. Such conviction is full of valuable power and joy. Let us 
all seek such self-evidence as shall necessitate our Eternal Well-Being. 
[Preached at Akron, Ohio, SeJ>t. 14, 1890.] 



THE LAW. 

Psalm 119. 



Who shall speak when the Lord is here? Where shall there be found a voice 
when the Lord is ready to utter himself ? Let the earth keep silence before Him. 
Let the seas cease their tumult. Let peace and stillness await at the entrance of His 
lips, for the Lord of Hosts has spoken, and our ears are full of His message, and our 
mouth hastens to give forth His praise and magnify His great glory. 

My name is the Lord. My ways are perfect. My word is law. My going and 
my coming is peace and joy and gentleness. My name is the Law. My statutes are 
engraved upon my heart. My words are the way of life ; they are very full of the law 
of Truth. 

Beside Me there is no law at all. I AM the Law of the Lord. My speech is set 
in perfection. My mind is established. My feet are firm. My rock is finished, none 
shall move it, none shall put it away, none can speak against it, for its presence is the 
highway of law, and all My words are legal. I AM THAT I AM, The Law. 

My tiamc is the Law. My authority is enough. It is full. It is plenty. It is able. 
It is sufficient. None can violate, none can hurt it, none can hate it, for I AM the 
Law, and beside Me there is none else. Vain flesh calls a meeting. Imagines sayings. 
Counsels at nothingness. Strews vanities. Sows hate. Spills forth suspicions. Fills 
the air with fears. Builds idols of Law of paper and nervous effort. Spills the 
breath of their brain-dust over all flesh. Then they hasten to their homes in fear and 
trembling, while all flesh seethes and boils in a vale of tears, and rends in pieces its 
network of paper laws on statute-books. 

My name is Law. Who shall strew Me on paper? Who shall wear My ermine 
of purity? Who shall put on My purple of power? Who shall mock My dignity, or 
strut in the hire of My majesty ? Let the earth tremble. Let the nations fall down 
and expire of vanity. Let all flesh escape My presence. I AM the Law. My way is 
perfect. My title is eternal. My laws abide. They shall not endure on paper ; flesh 
shall not know My law. I know not flesh. Its name has not come to My ears. Its 
memory is not found with Me. Its utter nothingness has been in My law from 
eternity. Its vanity is written in My heart. Its folly is stamped upon My being. I 
cannot see flesh. It is branded with chaos. Its way is full of all lawlessness. My 
name is Law. My name is Spirit. My name is Man. My name is God. My path 



is full of delight. My course is full of success. My word is swift. Its track is known. 
Its light fills all in all. 

Where shall My court of law be held ? My place is hid from all flesh. How 
shall the wayward come up to My justice? Vain is the heart of dust. Its cry is weary 
of darkness. Its way is hid. Its feet stumble. Its path is a loathing and a curse. Its 
course is run. None shall go in at its gates and live. None shall go out of its 
presence alive. Where shall they buy justice in the realm of violence, in the hateful 
regions of chaos and utter death ? How shall My law come into their hearts ? Know 
thou, vain flesh, that My name is not -written upon you, My life shall not enter your 
veins, My law shall not lodge in your dust, My statutes shall never be put in your 
hands. I AM the Lord, the Eternal Law of All. My word is perfect. None shall 
say it nay. None shall be proud in its presence. None shall lift the eyebrows to 
scorn it. Its glory is too beautiful for flesh to credit, too perfect for tongue of dust to 
utter. 

My court is not a secret. It is known to all My children. It is bright and shining 
with the light of liberty and peace. Justice fills its halls. Freedom abides in its 
windows. My presence is ever there. My way is always near it. My love sits ever 
in its judgment-seats. Truth deals out its equity. Life enters its rewards. 

My court is never a place of sorrow. It never hears sentences of penalty. Its 
payments are always rewards. Its findings are always peace and joy and freedom. 
My presence is the glory and the light of my court of justice. Who shall reverse its 
jndgments of good ? My name is Law. Justice is My companion. Love is My 
chosen friend. 

My name is Law. My presence is Almighty. Who shall break My enactments ? 
Who shall not love My judgments? They are full of power, abundant in freedom, 
overflowing with gentleness, a fountain of blessings, a stream of fragrance, an ocean 
of excellence. There is none to think Me unjust. There is none to hate me. There 
is none to do me any violence. I AM the Law of Love. 

My name is Law. My ways are found by the pure in heart. My statutes are 
plain and clear to all the just. My judgments are ever in the mouth of the wise. My 
enactments are the continual refuge of the good. My path is full of many delights. 
All know Me and love Me. All seek Me and find Me. For My secret is simple to 
the meek. My judgments are satisfaction to the child-like. None go from My pres- 
ence. None wander from My statutes. They find all My -words plenty in good things. 
My name is Law; beside Me there is none else. 

Shall flesh sit in My judgment-seats ? Shall dust name My holy name upon their 
lips? Shall ashes deal out My justice? Shall mortality appoint and pay My judges? 
Let the folly of vanity cease. Stop off the dream of your empty pride. Pledge your 
mouth of flesh to silence. Be dumb in My presence. Let My name be bright in My 
place. Open your eyes to My words. Wear the mantle of My glory. My name is 
not empty. My power is able to overflow all peoples with justice. My name is Jus- 

— 82 — 



- _ 



tice. My name is Freedom. My way is liberty. None shall go out from My presence 
forever. I AM the Law. I AM THAT I AM— the Lord, the Lord of Justice. 

The earth is clad in dust. This is pure vanity. You shall -not see the ground 
ranklv overgrown with the weeds of the flesh. You shall shut up the eyes of the 
dust. Your ears shall not partake of its chaos. You are not flesh. You are named 
with My name. 

My Law is now in all the earth. The Heavens obey My statutes. Flesh and 
matter does not see My presence. My Law is Spirit. Flesh thinks its bondage is law. 
But I have shut My eyes against its ways. I have put its law out of My sight. The • 
bands that hold the stars in their orbits, the fastenings that cause flesh to cling 
together, the hooks upon which the planets are hanged, the nails that rivet dust to dust 
and ashes to ashes are not found in My statute-books. Flesh never knew My ways. 
My name was never in its mouth. I never have seen flesh. I have said — ' ' I never 
knew you." All its enactments in My name are null and void. 

My name is Law. Order is the Spirit of My Being. Harmony is " the music of 
My nature. Heaven is the court of My justice. My ways are Mind. My dictates of 
law are written in perfection. My tenets are holy and inscribed in Substance. They 
stand. Thev shine. They are pure. Thev open the eyes with joy. They unfetter 
the ears with music. Thev put out tyranny in silence. They reach out in power to 
uplift. Thev are white and beautiful. They are clean. They hold the mind steady. 
They balance the meek. They are the boldness of the brave. They are the substance 
of honesty. They are the foundations of integrity. They are the refuge of the 
oppressed. They are the. asylum of the fallen down. I AM the Law, the Law 
Almighty. 

Hold vour hearts. Seize My name. Let flesh stop. Let its vapor disperse. 
Hold My word in your mouth. Rivet your tongue to My Substance. The thin mist of 
matter is blown away. My name abides. My mouth speaks. All things are full of 
My good tidings. I AM The Law. My justice is praise. My place is far from fears. 
Corruption has never found Me out. My name is Perfection; there is none else. Who 
can escape My presence. Am I not fullness ? Am I not engraven in the Being of 
Omnipresence? My path is known to the wise, the familiar haunt of the honest, the 
rendezvous of the pure, the home of the good, the abiding-place of the Best, the loving, 
the true, the faithful. I AM a stream of peace, a river of gladness. My banks over- 
flow with rest and joy. My source is Love. My emptying-place is Justice. 

I AM the Law. My name is Substance. I abide. My glory is white. I shine. 
I endure in light. My shining cannot be hid, cannot be put out, cannot grow dim. 
It abides in its ermine, its pure robes, its white justice. Darkness cannot be with Me. 
I AM a hidden secret to disorder. Make your home in My house. Stay in the hear- 
ing of My voice, that your hearts may enjoy My firm peace, that your tongues may 
become steadfast. 

My name is Eternal Law. My being is Substance. My nature cannot change, 
cannot forget, cannot slip. I AM a faithful friend. I AM called Mother, because I 

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cannot forsake My confidence, or lose My tenderness. My feet stand in Truth. My 
garment is righteousness. All My thoughts are right. My clothes are always true, 
for My motives are open and pure, and there is no cause to hide My head in shame or 
lay schemes to betray. My name is Integrity. 

Who are these bound in the fetters of flesh ? They call themselves fools and 
scream out their own betrayal. They herald abroad their own bondage and bind 
themselves in the chains of their own words. They are dumb in My presence. They 
cannot open their mouth, for My Substance locks their jaws. They cannot find My 
safe retreat, for they are not under My light and are not walking where My Truth can 
shine upon their way. They deem Me nothing, for their eyes are vanity, and they 
paint all My Being with their own fancies, reveling in the " chambers of their imagery." 
They cannot come out of their own being, for their natures expire as My breath comes 
into their mouths. They cannot think My thoughts, or put on My glistening words. 
They faint as I enter their hearts, for My -words are not sacred to their lips. They 
have pledged- in My name and their " tongues frame deceit." Their tailoring is filthy 
rags, for they think to fix up for themselves a holy garment fit for My presence; so 
they are clad in nothingness, and their shame leaks out and is published abroad, and 
fingers are pointed at their downcast eyes, for their secrets are known, and their vi'le- 
ness is pictured on their faces, which they cannot in their ignorance wash, for the 
water of My words they have called empty and rainless clouds and the wind of their 
boasting has blown them out of their mouth. They have poured out black smoke from 
their throats and are lost in its darkness. They are utterly nothing. My white pres- 
ence they have painted black with idolatry. Their candle is flickered out. They 
cannot be found. 

/ A M The Law. My name is Praise. My beauty is the language of all the wise 
in heart ; they love the aroma of My oil. My nature charms them continually. The 
praise of Me alters the lines of their faces and draws all their looks in beauty, for 
their countenances shine as the stars in the firmament. Their splender is continual. 
They cannot cease from shining, for it is their perpetual life and glory. I AM Their 
Law. I guide them. Their steps never slip. My song is in their hearts from ever- 
lasting. They abide in power. They defy flesh. They say — Let the shadow be 
swallowed up. Let its memory be snuffed out. It laws are smoke, never unbroken. 
Its paths are' clouds, never straight. 

I AM The Law. My name is Power. Who shall bind Me in graves of flesh? 
Who shall shut Me up in tombs of bone. Who shall drown Me in veins and arteries 
of blood? Who shall strew me in matter and parcel Me out to atoms? Who shall 
wed Me to carnal thoughts bent on mischief, or pile up My treasures in brains of flesh? 
Who shall fence across My road or stop My steps with cords of vanity ? Shall the 
rocks hasten to dust in honor of My coming? Nay, that is their own way; they can- 
not honor Me. When I AM passed by they cease and become as they are — nothing. 
The seas cannot drown Me or the flood wash Me away, for their nature is nothing. I 
AM The Law. My name is Power. The fires do not get their violence from My name. 

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I AM called Peace. The tempests cannot tell ot My majesty, for they do not know 
My word. I AM called Silence. The noise of the cataracts and the thunder — wholly 
born of clouds — have no part in Me. My name is Law. I never hurt or make afraid 
or deal out destruction. My name is Life, I cannot kill. My name is Love, I cannot 
rage. Mv name is Freedom, I cannot bind. I AM THAT I AM — The Law. 

My name is Victory. I AM called Success. Death is spent. The grave is empty 
and undone. Vanity is bankrupt. My way is perpetual prosperity. Plenty is My 
assured friend. Riches delight in My company. Gold hastens to be blessed by Me. 
Silver is eager to hunt Me out. Fame calls Me Lord. My nature is overflowing, as 
a fountain. I AM never dry. I AM never hungry. I AM never naked. I AM 
never stingv. Mv name is Bread. My Substance is food. My word is fine raiment. 
My light is jewelry. My glory is precious stones. My name is a scepter. I AM 
called Lord of lords and King of kings. They clothe Me in ermine. I dress My 
lovers in purple. I give them My Spirit. I pour My nature into them. They eat of 
Me ; they beverage at My table. I AM The Law. My name is All. My name is 
One. 

I AM THAT I AM — The Law. My strength abides. None shall faint, none 
shall weaken, none shall be sick, none shall cry, none. shall wear sorrow, none shall 
suck in pain, none shall put on age, none shall commit death. My familiar name is 
Health. The wise call Me Joy. The pure call Me Peace. The true call Me Rest. 
The Just call Me Life. My name is All, My name is One. I AM THAT I AM— The 
Law. 

I AM THAT I AM — My name is Law. I AM never called past. My word is 
not future. My name is The Eternal Now. I AM never called become, My nature is 
Being, My fullness is now. I AM called Eternity. Who are these that play with 
time ? They delight in many births and wail at many deaths. They gaze at a swing- 
ing pendulum. They are glad at change. Their joy is vanity. They become ; they 
can never Be. My nature always is. I abide. My authority cannot boast at age. My 
word never hides itself among traditions. I will not wear a coat of arms; My pedigree 
is Myself, there is none beside Me. 

I AM The Law. My presence is here. Let silence give Me glory. Shall not I — 
The Law — speak ? Who said that My voice was hushed ? There is none to speak but 
Me. There is no word to utter but mine. There is no praise but My presence. 
There is no silence but My language. Ann I not here in the midst? Is not My voice 
plain and easy to be heard? Whom say ye that I am? Am I not the Lord? You 
know My voice, you understand My speech, I AM THAT I AM. Who shall come 
together without My presence? Let them disperse, for they are not together; my 
name is One ; My name is All. Who shall speak but Me? Keep still and know My 
words. They shall fill your Being with rest ; they shall establish your heart in zeal ; 
they shall kindle your minds with Truth and Love. My name is Law. I AM known 
as All in All. 

Who are these come together and shut their ears to My sayings and close their 

_S 5 - 



throats to My words ? Their lips are a curse. Their tongues are vanity. Their dis- 
courses are judgments of wrath. They imagine that My Silence cannot speak. 
They deem My presence a sentiment. They have no faith in My power and My good- 
ness. They will not be still that I may speak. Their end is come upon them. They 
dwell in terror. Their idle fears besiege their flesh. Their strength is bound. Their 
throats are choked off. They are hurried away to nothingness. Who is there to re- 
member them, since they never were? 

Know you — vain and empty dream — that My name is Power. I AM THAT I 
AM, beside Me there is none to be. My voice is here and you know Me in your 
hearts. Let My precepts take root in your Substance. Let My words sink deep into 
your Being, for they shall fill you with fountains of rejoicing. They shall clothe your 
faces with smiles, and bathe your presence in Love. 

Who are these vain forms of flesh clad in rags? They huddle together. They 
make statute-books. They build courts of wood and brick and stone. They frame a 
State in their vain minds. They weave it of a chaos of laws. They plant a nation of 
flesh, and rear a government, of ashes. They scheme and plot and snarl and slander in 
the name of the Law, they take My name in vain. Their judgment bites at their heels. 
Their suspicions bark at their windows. Their forebodings wrangle and roar about 
their judgment seats. Shall I not speak? Shall not My name go forth? The name 
of My presence is Law, I AM THAT I AM. I AM here, I declare My words. I 
plant My standard in My rock. I build My Substance of pure Spirit. I name My 
statutes in order. I call My chosen seed and appoint My voice. I have said My 
praise. I have laid My foundations. I AM here and do speak. Let that State of dust 
blow away. Let that nation of ashes find itself a wind. Let that court of flesh hunt 
out its abode of vanity. Let that leather and paper book of equity smother to powder 
under the overhanging presence of My Truth. Mine is a book of Life. Its pages are 
full of the wise. Its records are known to the meek. Its words are Love. My name 
is Law— I AM THAT I AM. 

Is not My name Wisdom? Do I not know My nature? Shall I not declare it? 
I AM The Law. My thoughts are keen and loving. They are the garments of the 
righteous. They are praise. They are the essence of goodness, the substance of 
happiness, the presence of pure Truth. My name is All, My name is One. 

My State is Spirit — My nation is mind. My law is Truth. My name is My 
Nature. Where shall I go to depart from Myself? Who shall find Me a hiding place 
rrom Myself? My nature is All. My name is Law. Where shall you find any state 
but Mine? Who can frame a nation without Me ? Is not Law My name? My courts 
are Substance. They abide in justice. They stand on the rock. They cannot be 
moved. Who shall hold a court without Me? Who shall sit in a judgment-seat 
where I AM not? Is not My name the Law? Shall not I put My Spirit in all that 
speak Truth ? 

Be glad that the heart of Spirit is woven with My Law. Rejoice that My name 
is poured out upon all My nature, for I AM All, I AM One. Sing praise, that the 

— 86 — 



Law has opened its mouth and declared its secrets and its name. Keep your tongues 
familiar with its words. Wear its mantle of authority. I AM THAT I AM. My 
name is Law. I put My name upon you. I pour My nature into your nature. I call 
vou by Mv name. All shall call you blessed. I AM the Law of blessing. My name 
shall be your companion. It shall lighten your way. It shall rejoice your mind. It 
is your fountain of good, your stream of plenty, your river of peace. Keep My stat- 
utes. Love My Law. Be wise. Be meek. Be good. I AM THAT I AM. 



THE CHURCH. 

Isa. 61 and 62. 

The tongue of God is the only voice, the mouth of Spirit is all that may utter 
itself in this our Eternal Now. God has taken unto Himself a mouth -piece, He has put 
on lips, His tongue is Man, is Himself; He has married a bride to praise His glory and 
live in his love; His church is the wife, the motherhood of God, for the dispensation 
of the Spirit of Holiness, the Holy Ghost of Love is now ours in the fullness of all 
Revelation. 

Harken all the earth, let all the noise of intellect cease, keep silence, for who 
may open his lips when the / AM THA T I AM is with us, entreating our atten- 
tion, knocking with tender invitation at our hearts, winning us with all the Mother- 
Love of the Church of Holy God-Man to be the recipients of its glory and wear the 
dignity and majesty of its loveliness. 

I AM THAT I AM THE CHURCH, the Bride of God, the Mother of preaching, 
the Father of Good-Tidings to the meek. My name is the Word. My substance is 
holy. My timbers are wrought in silence. My way is strewn with flowers, for I Am 
the bride of Jesus Christ, I Am the one altogether lovely. Beside Me is no voice. 
My song is beautiful. My beauty is holiness. I Am the praise of God. Vanity 
cannot hear my music. The spheres of harmony melt the mountains and 
level the crookedness of every place. The people tremble and faint as I pass by, 
for my glory is too bright for them ; none of them all can look upon me ; why should 
they, am I not the Bride of God ? My name is the Church. It is given me to speak 
peace. To put away vanity. I am come forth to be a blessing. I am called to tend 
the heritage of God, to mother the children of His love. Shall I not then be lovely, 
full of all grace and beauty, full of plenty, lending milk unto the faint, pouring my 
oil out upon the sad, putting joy in the ways of all who travel as pilgrims. 

My name is the Church. None shall despise me. None shall profane my place. 
None shall be called to see my beauty and visit out my peace, save those that are pure 
in heart and clad in my own shining garments of praise. My name is my God. My 
name is written upon me. Plain and clear is the motto of my perfection shining over 
all who are bidden to my marriage. My word is very pure, very strong. It uplifts. 
It never wavers. It is steady, firm, true, ceaseless. All are my children. I love with 

_8 7 ~ 



a boundless love. None wearing the rags of their own right ways can come in and sit 
down in my high place. I am too pure to see their filthiness. My name is purity. I 
am the Mother-God. I am the Church. 

Who are these wearing the fripperies of fashion gilded with vanity ? Who are 
these that are a stench unto themselves, steeped in their costly perfumes ? Who are 
these that are thieves of their own purity, wearing not my wedding garment ? My 
name is purity. None can see me with impure eyes. None shall see me whose eyes 
are full of the dust of flesh. None shall sit in my presence without my own vestment 
of love and joy and peace, and are clean in the word of my power. I know mine own. 
None can gainsay me. There is none to be who do not love me, for I am the Bride of 
God, who is all there is, beside whom there is none else at all. 

My name is the Church. I AM called Mother. I AM known for my love. My 
beauty is my praise. My loveliness is a continual incense unto my God. I AM my 
God. I am known to be His Church, by my power, by my uplifting, by my plenty, 
by my saving, by my voice am I known, for it is ever gentle, and loving, and sweet, 
and full, and free. I know not flesh. I do not show 'my glory to flesh. I am Spirit. 
I am holy. I am pure. I am just. I am true. I am faithful. My name is always 
pleasant before all the chosen of my word. Who shall speak when the Lord is present? 
Who shall utter anything at all? for the God-Man of glory now speaks to his own. 
Let there be deep silence, for the voice of the ages is here. Let the waves be still. 
Let noise cease. Let all be glad, for the Mother-Song of the Spirit Eternal is ready to 
declare itself and call upon its beauty and its love to blaze out and Be in the fullness of 
its Being. 

My name is the Church. The Bride of God. Behold my glory. Praise my Praises 
unto all goodness. Sound forth the name of my exaltation. I am the chosen. I am 
the bright and shining one. My face is very wonderful, for my God has shined upon 
it. None can look upon my beauty whose thoughts are not clean, white as wool ten 
times purified. Who shall enter my gates ? Who shall hear my praises ? Who shall 
wear my white robes ? Those of my own choice. Those whose purity is an incense 
to my presence. Those who wear continually as a familiar garment the smile of my 
God. Those whose words are pure. Those whose ways are upright. Those whose 
deeds are full of love and tenderness. My name is the Church of God. My word is 
set; none shall touch it. My seal is put on; none shall remove it, for I Am that I Am, 
the Eternal Church of the Blessed, the Redeemed of the Word of Power, the Chosen 
Seed of my Lord. These are the children of my nature. These are the radiance of 
my presence. These are the jewels of my crown. These are the stars of my heaven; 
not one shall be put out, not one shall grow dim, not one shall become old or faint 
or weary, not one shall be disrobed of his shining, spotless vesture. These are my 
little ones, my flock, my own. My name is the Mother. I am known by my name. 
My children know me. They hear my voice. They never wander from my light 
and my love and my protection. Can ye not hear my voice ? then are you not my 
child? You are not my called, because you are nothing. I am the Church of all 

— SS — 



living. None are left out. None escape my measureless love. My arms underreach 
all of the chosen seed of God. They are mine forever. 

My name is the Church. Do you think to build me of wood, to mortar me to- 
gether of bricks, to fashion me of stone. Know you I am The Spirit. My name is 
Spirit. My holiness is not dust. My frame is not conceived in wood, is not formed 
of brick, is not nurtured of stone. My presence is not decked with silks and costly 
apparel of dust and ashes. My way is strewn with the incense of holiness. My aisles 
are the highways of joy. My altar is the word of my strength, embosomed in the love 
of my God. My priests are a Holy People. My word is Love and Truth. My name 
is written in the faces of the cherubim. My ensign is not done in carved work, but is 
woven into the fibers of the heart. My purposes are not set in fickleness. My ways 
are perfect. My beautv is bright, like the morning. My shining is the tenderness of 
healing. Let none come to my doors with words of sorrow ; let none enter my halls 
of praise with the spirit of flattery ; let none lean upon my walls of salvation with 
fleshly hopes. For my name is Spirit. I tolerate no flesh in my sight. The bright- 
ness of my eyes burns up all the trees, all the hills, all the oceans, all the dust garment 
of the earth, for my name is Spirit, I know not anything else. My ways are wrought 
in love to all that are arrayed in meekness, and seek my haven in song. 

My name is the Church. My presence is the fullness of praise. My eyes are full 
of love. My tongue is an overflowing fountain of good things. My heart is a well- 
spring of love. My garments blaze with jewels, to heal all the nations. My name is 
the Church. Who shall find aught to say against me ? My halo is j^raise. To speak 
is to fill me with song. I am the body of God, the body of the Christ, the body of 
Alan. I am the Church, who shall not enter into the vision of my substance ? Shall 
any call me flesh ? Shall any deck me with dust ? I am not flesh. I am Spirit. I 
am the body of Spirit, I am the body of Jesus Christ, I am the Church, the Substance 
Divine and beautiful. 

My name is Spirit. I am full of song. I am the body of health. The body of 
God is pure, is holy, is health. Let there come into my presence none of the flesh of 
dust. It is filthy. It rots. It decays. It falls down. It is sore. It wastes. It is 
full of sins and festering with vileness. It is overgrown with diseases, full of aches, 
ready to pass away. It is not Me, for I am not dust and ashes. I am not flesh. I am 
Spirit. I am the Church, the body of God, the substance of Love. My name is 
health. My name is holiness. My name is on my children. All my members are in 
the glory of my healing presence, filled with my white healing substance. My gar- 
ment, which I give to all my children, all the called to my wedding, is a mantle of 
power, a robe of healing. Their clothes heal. They turn floods aside. They 
stretch their staves upon the sick and they are well. They feed health with their 
handkerchiefs. Their bones are full of the perfume of my presence, very able to heal 
all who are ready for my garments of praise. They stretch their robes upon the 
waters and pass over in safety. They are my chosen. They are the children of my 
love, the angels of my presence, power and glory. My name is in their mouth. x My 

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name is Mother. My name is God. My name is Christ. My name is Holy Ghost. 
I am the Church. I baptize my children with power. My body is my presence, my 
substance. My children know my milk. They know my voice. 

My name is the Church. Who shall fix up for me a baptistry? Who shall build 
me an house? Who shall wet my children with water? Whence is that moisture 
with which you have taken my name in vain? Am I not Spirit? Who shall call me 
water? My name is Spirit. I am a flood to all nothingness. I am not a flood, for 
vanity is gone. Its way is utterly hidden. None can find its hiding place, for it is lost. 
I am not water, I am Spirit. My baptism is Spirit, is power, is praise, is full of 
every good thing of Love. 

My name is the Church. My members know My name. They are always full of 
ears to my voice, full of eyes to my presence, full of power to give My word. My 
name is ever on their lips. It is their household word. It is their song by day and 
by day. It is a continual fragrance. It is a perpetual perfume, a fountain of sweet- 
ness, a nest of roses. They can never forget My name. They know It. It is theirs. 
I have named them with my name, they never loose it, it is their presence, their light, 
their glory, their power. They love my name. It is honey in their mouths, soft and 
tender in their ears, full of excellence and perpetual good tidings in their mind. 

My name is the Church. My presence is light, is a baptism of good things. 
There is no other with which to baptize. All my children are full of the power of my 
presence. There is not one else. They all sing in my songs. They all take part 
in my praises. They all are known by my name. They all declare my glory. They 
all speak good tidings. They all uplift, help, save. They are sight to the blind, hear- 
ing to the deaf, health for the sick, riches for the poor, plenty for the needy. They 
never go out of my presence. They never set apart a day to be in my presence. They 
know that my Sabbath is eternal. My name is the Church. I am full of praise always. 
My seats are never empty. My aisles are never vacant. My doors are never closed. 
My people abide continually in my name. They are wholly set apart unto me. They 
know nothing else but Me. They have a perpetual Sabbath of power and their going 
is a blessing forever. 

My name is the Church. Who shall set apart for me one day in seven ? Who 
shall parcel out time unto me ? My name is God. Who shall mete out to me a 
prayer and garner unto himself a basket of satisfaction in my name ? My name is 
the Christ. My name is holy. You shall know my name and praise me. You shall 
not fast for me ; you shall not beg of me ; you shall not weep and howl in my pres- 
ence ; you shall not -wear pale gowns of ashes and twist your throats in tones of 
mockery and conceit in my name ; you shall not lift your dust-eyes and roll them in 
ceilings of ashes, to enlist the pride of sympathy. My name is holy. My name is 
the Church. None shall see my place in vanity. None shall be in my courts in flesh. 
None shall know my love but the meek and wise in heart. My whole word is to the 
children of God. My name is Mother. Let the proud depart. My doors are never 
foun/I by the eyes of conceit. Haughtiness cannot enter. Eyes that gloat on fine 

— 90 — 



clothes, eves that lust after comely faces, eyes that love to look at vanity and 
dust and filth cannot come in. My members are perfect. They are -well, healed of 
the flesh. Hearts that are fond of flesh, that swell at the contortions of throats, that 
delight in the conceits of Adam, such stay out. They are utterly nothing. My place 
is sacred to Truth. My altar is holy to Spirit. My voice draws only the real and 
substantial of people. Lips that lie are not joined in my songs. Tongues that talk 
vanity never utter my praise. Flesh that swells and is full of all pollution, cannot be 
incense in my house. My name is the Church. I tell you my nature. It cannot be 
otherwise. It must be as it is, for as it is, it is forever. No flesh shall enter my 
place. I am the Church. My word stands, none shall make it unholy. My preacher, 
mv minister, my voice speaks only Truth. My voice shall never declare lies. My 
voice is full of help, full of comfort, full of joy, full of peace, none shall escape its 
love. I am the Church, the Bride of God, My word abides forever. 

Who art thou? Shall not the Church of Christ speak? Keep you silent, while the 
I Am That I Am gives out the law. Hush your noisy hearts of empty lies, while the 
voice of the Church makes plain its way. Cease from your pride, still your conceit, 
close your lips of dust and ashes, while my voice is heard in all the earth. I Am 
That i Am. 

I AM the CJuirch. Do I not know my nature ? I am full of thinking Truth. 
My name is living consciousness ; I am the body of God. My name is in my mouth. 
I know myself. My nature is white and plain and full of light before me, none shall 
darken my way in all the earth. My peace is known. It is the street of wisdom. I sit 
and proclaim it. I am wisdom. My name is the Church, none shall shadow my 
knowledge. My light is shining. I declare my nature. Come into my presence with 
words of Truth. Speak no lies. Utter wisdom, for the knock of the wise is heard. 
The prayer of the faithful is answered. The heart of the just is full of eyes to my 
glory. The pure know me, even as I know myself. My word is unto the meek. Let 
your heart say praises. Let your mouth declare freedom. 

I AM the Church of God. Who is this bringing dust of wheat, the bread of flesh, 
up to my altar ? Who is this drinking of the vain grape-juice in my sight ? I do 
not see it. It is vanity. Who shall call my words of life and love the bread of flour? 
Who shall murder grapes and offer my presence vanity ? I do not see it. I do not 
smell the wine. I cannot know the bread. I cannot admire the pale and sickly nap- 
kins. I cannot take part in your fleshly feast. I cannot visit your table of dust. I 
am left out of your unholy sacrament. I Am the Mother of God. I am the Church. 
I love my people. I love my words. Speak away, you vain idols. Wash off, you 
dust tables. Clean off, you glittering spread, sordid with pride and filled with vanity. 
Speak Truth. I Am the Truth. My word is Spirit, I cannot commune with flesh. I 
cannot eat with you the dust of bread and the vile water of grape. I long to bid my 
children to my holy communion. My saints in light partake with me. We feed on 
joy, on love, on peace. Our table is full, not one place vacant. You of dust cannot eat 
our bread or drink our wine. It is the Spirit. I Am the Church. I Am Spirit. I Am 

— 91 — 



the Mother of God. Who shall bake me bread, or press me wine? Who shall fill 
my presence with the wine of nothingness or the bread of decay ? I Am the Spirit. I 
.Am the Church. None but the pure can eat with me. None but the lovely can sit 
at my table. None but the meek can wear my white robes. None but the true can 
speak in my love. I Am the Bride of God. I Am the Body of Jesus Christ, the Pure 
Spirit of His Saints. 

Who shall preach in my presence ? Who shall declare my glory and show 
forth my praise? None but the clean, none but the Spirit, none but the pure, none but 
the quickened of Life, none but the meek, none but the glad, none but the free, none 
but the true, none but the powerful. Who shall wait at my altar? Who shall serve 
Me with the holy conversation of the wise? They that wear my pure ring of adop- 
tion ; they that cannot lie ; they that cannot cheat ; they that never flatter ; they that 
wear a continual garland of gladness, that are stamped with the habit of smiles. 
Strip off your dust. Unclothe your free nature. Wear liberty as a jewel, and wisdom 
as a shining gem. Deck your soul with the sunshine of joy, wreath your faces in a 
circlet of flowers. Your home is made, your house is built, your place is ready. Sit 
down in your excellence. Put on your ring. Be glad. Sing. Open your mouth 
that I may fill it with praise. Open your eyes that I may bathe them in peace. Open 
your hearts that I may saturate them with love. Stand up in your joy. You are 
satisfied. My name is the Church. My people are free. My children are fed. My 
house is open. My seats are full. My substance is abundant. My name is plenty. 
My word is rich. My life is overflowing with treasures. Put on the wedding gar- 
ment. I Am the Church. My -words abide. My place is eternal. Let none go out. 

I AM the Church of God. My benediction is the word of my perpetual presence. 
My love abides in your hearts. My light is ever shed upon your path. My way is 
your way. Walk in my love. Abide in my word. Live in my presence. It is your 
life. It is your home. Amen. 

[ June 21th, 1890.] 



GETHSEMANE I. 

We are now in the very Presence of Infinite Love — boundless mercy. This loving 
presence is called Father of us all, because we all recognize Its strong, tender, and pro- 
tecting wisdom in our hearts. This same Presence of mercy and compassion, which 
unites our will and understanding in such joy and peace just now, is called by the 
all-forgiving and ever-excusing name of Mother, because it does truly enter our 
whole natures with such holy blessings and gentle caressings of peace and inno- 
cence. It is so motherly that it cannot find any fault in its own. 

This Presence, so good, s\> transcendent in all mercy, is the God whom Jesus of 
Nazareth met in the garden of Gethsemane. This same God is now here. This same 
Jesus is now here. They meet again in this Presence, and we may behold the won- 

— 92 — 



drous Love of God the Father and of God the Son — of God as God and of God as 
Man — for this very presence, which we now breathe, is in no sense other than the 
garden of oil-presses called Gethsemane. 

Do we find the story — the parable of that so-called garden of agony — a mys- 
tery, full of difficulties and clouded with things hard to understand? Then God is 
here — just the same loving, willing to hear and answer God that was there. The 
same Jesus is here. Let them answer for themselves. 

God savs — / AM Love. Tesus says — / AM Love. God says — / AM Eternal 
Love. Jesus savs — I and my Father are one. God says — I Am Life, and I never 
sentenced any one, much less Jesus Christ, to death. Jesus says — " No man taketh 
My life from me — I haye power to lay it down and power to take it up." 

But you ask this Presence — did not God punish all sin in Jesus Christ ? God, 
this Presence, answers — I never accused anyone of sin. "I Am too pure to behold 
iniquity." Jesus says — " I judge no man." My eyes are full of innocence. I can 
take no sin on me. 

But you ask, why the agonyrand the sweating of great drops as it were of blood 
as Luke reports? God says — "I did not see them." Jesus saj's — "I did not see 
them : I saw only my loving Father, my Mother, my God, my Self. Luke savs to 
us now — "I told only the appearances, which you may not judge from, but only 
understand in the spiritual sense." 

But was not any cup there ? This Presence is full of answer to all our queries. 
It says — there was no cup there — no hour at hand. I Am Omnipresence and know 
nothing of cups or hours. This Presence is Jesus Christ, of whom Paul rightly speaks 
as — " the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." Surely this Presence cannot be relia- 
ble if it is subject to critical changes — called a cup, or different states of mind, called 
hours. 

Let this Presence of God, Man-God, illumine us all to know the bright Truth of 
peace taught in this important parable enacted by Jesus. We may learn from Love 
that the whole life on earth of every man, woman, child, animal, tree, stone, is an en- 
acted play, a graphic parable of doctrine in the wisdom of All-Intelligence. In the 
life of Jesus, we may find this Truth, especially near the surface. He not only told 
parables, as many others did, but was in constant consciousness that His earthly 
career was to enact the part of God in the stage of life. Now some look upon His 
life as a tragedy — some as a comedy — some as both — some few as neither. Ortho- 
doxy appears for the most part to deem it a tragedy. So-called free-think- 
ers imagine it a plain tragedy, with a well-gotten-up tableau at the end — such as in 
the play of Uncle Tom's Cabin little Eva appears, after the last act, in Heaven, under 
the glory of red and blue lights — for many of them smile good-naturedly over the res- 
urrection as quite too absurd even to argue down, while the ascension they deem as a 
sort of chorus in -which the cow jumped over the moon, and ought to have been long 
since expurgated even from the nursery. 

Now this Divine Presence reveals in our hearts all the full meanings which 

— 93 — 



these parables set forth. Nor does it by any means persuade us that such acts as 
Gethsemane never occurred, for it does not enter at all upon the statistics re- 
garding the " letter which killeth," but deals wholly with the Truth called forth 
from the grave of materiality. The stories are just as warrantable as any of the 
scenes in your life on earth, but the meaning in no measure hangs upon this phase 
of the matter. 

We will now consider in the bright radiance of this presence some important 
reflections concerning the nature of Peace, as here symbolized by oil. 

THE NATURE OF PEACE. 

i. It is evident why we at once abandon the mere physical notion of oil or fat, 
and take up the spiritual quality of peace, since we know " the flesh profiteth noth- 
ing." The Spirit is Life. Spirit is All as Presence, Power, and Intelligence. There 
never was, is not, and never will be any such notion as mortal mind, with its material 
pictures, such as oil. 

2. Discord is inharmony. Disease is discord. So Peace is Health. Whoever 
reveals the Truth of Spirit as All-Perfect, reveals Health, and so puts away strife or 
disease. Jesus calls such ones peace-makers, who are in His "words " sons of God," 
that is God. 

3. We read of" pouring oil upon troubled waters." We remember the Gospels 
say that Jesus was "sore troubled" in this garden of Gethsemane. But we know 
that " troubled waters" signifies Mortal thinking, notions of vanity. For these we 
find denial, and the Truth reveals Peace, so -we put oil on the " troubled -waters." 

4. If there were no oil in the land, how our machine shops would screech or be 
silent. If the oil were taken out of the human body, what wailings and gnashing of 
teeth would be heard from the resulting pain ! Only oil could bring peace -to the 
gearing and pulleys. Only oil could ease the diseased human machine. 

5. It is only a mere -whim of mortal mind that we need oil in our machinery and 
in our bodies. But it is a negative picture of the Truth that peace is the Law of Spirit. 

6. The laws of the nation need oiling also. If there were not any public senti- 
ment of respectability and favor of good laws, soon peace and goodwill would be 
swallowed up in war in this- and all lands. This is only a rough picture of what the 
peace of heaven means in its relation to law of heaven. There is no law against 
peace, says Paul. All Being favors its own nature and so there is peace in God or 
All Being. 

7. The Kingdom of Heaven is a state of mind — in fact it is the only state of 
mind there is. It is called God. It is Peace. It is Law. It is Harmony. 

8. If you say that the State of Mind — called Heaven, is Law — then we see how 
it is peace, for without peace is no law, and war is a state of lawlessness. 

9. If you are not in a state of perfect peace, you are not in Being at All, for All 
Being is peace. No matter what state of mind one may seem to be in, there is but one 
real state of mind and that is peace. The State of peace is divine. It is the only state 
God can ever be in. Man has also but this one state of Being. This state of peaceful 

— 94 — 



mind is of infinite quality — called Life, Truth, Love, etc., but it must ever be in the 
state of peace and harmony. This Presence is the state of mind called peace, for 
there is none else. This Presence is intensely healing of all trouble and illness. 

10. To imagine that there is something you want, and have not, is to forget your 
true state of peace, for you at once begin to be disturbed to do and try to get what 
vour wishes prompt. Knowing that you have all things now is the state of peace and 
contentment. This is truly now your real state. This Presence holds you in a state of 
perfect peace and satisfaction. This Presence is God. God is now here. God is now 
here as peace. This Presence of the God of peace satisfies your whole life and reveals 
in you your tranquil mind. This Presence says continually — "Be still and know that 
I AM God.'' "Peace be still." This Presence rests us all. 

ii. It is worthy of remark that our chief oil State in which is the place called 
Oil City, is Pennsylvania. This means the woods of Penn. Wood is desire or motive 
or impulse or influence. Penn — William Penn — is famous as the Quaker of Peace. 
So Ave see our oil comes from the State called the "influence of Peace." 

12. Oil is combustible. Fire means love. Hence we understand this to mean 
that true love is a state of peace. Love of the Now is Peace, for God is Now-Love. 
So also this presence is full of ability to burn up all our discord and disease, for we 
are in Peace. 

13. Oil is capable of being reduced to an invisible (to our eyes) gas. This is 
because Peace is Spirit. This Presence is the Spirit of Peace. 

14. Oil has ever been a great source of light. This is because Peace is visible, 
-as we have in the word Jerusalem, which means the Self- Visibility of Peace. This 
also means that Peace is Wisdom or Truth or Intelligence or Mind, for we recall that 
persons of composed nature are ever wise and intelligent, and such as are hard to 
fluster or unbalance are said to have "presence of mind." People who worry much, 
and are habitually unpeaceful, soon wear out, like unoiled machines. Worry makes 
rheumatism. Peace is Health. 

15. It is a well known fact that the ancients, the prophets and the early Christians 
healed the sick by pouring oil upon them. This was because the Holy Spirit taught 
them that Peace is Health. 

16. You all remember the story in the Arabian Nights Tales in which the pass- 
word for entrance to a secret resort was "Open Sesame." We know why this word 
was used when we find out that Sesame is a kind of oil, and thus are taught that 
Peace is a word of opening power to all the secrets of Life and Good. It is the secret 
password, which reveals to us the power of this presence of the Most High, so that 
Ave dwell as did David "in the secret of His presence." 

[Preached at Akron, Ohio, October 26, 1890.] 



■95 



GETHSEMANE II. (Peace— Semane.) 

We now discuss peace, from the Scriptural use of the word " oil," explaining the 
Spiritual meaning of this text : (Gen. 28: iS) '■'■And jfacob rose up early 'in the morn- 
ing", and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and 
poured oil upon the top of it.''' 1 This Presence is Wisdom Itself and Truth Itself. It 
teaches the meaning in this verse, which is revealed only to those who say / AM 
THAT I AM. 

Jacob means, in the Hebrew, '.' following- after." This is the becoming, which is 
never Being — the future, which is never Now — the tomorrow, which can never come 
until it ceases to be tomorrow. Becoming must stop, that there may appear Being. 
The future is not future, if it is changed to the Now. Jacob is no longer Jacob, when 
he is Israel, really Israel. 

'■'■Rose zip" means thought in a high state of mind. '■'■Early'''' means eagerly, with 
zeal, with love of his thinking, with lofty and courageous motive. He made high 
statements of Truth just as quick as they were self-evident to him, without waiting for 
the seeming to catch up. The word hints at the idea; " ear," -ly since the 
"ear" means obedience, or quick attention, is the lesson of obeying at once; 
that is, acting at once upon the Divine Nature of us, the inner light. " In the morn- 
ing' 1 '' means the very simplest and most modest Truth, such as a little child easily 
takes. Thus the clause — "And jfacob rose up early in the morning" reads — The becom- 
ing, the Adam man, gets into a high state of mind, eager with willing desire to obey 
even the simplest Truths. 

The next clause is — " And took the stone that he had put under his headP " Took" 
is to think — as Paul says, " Lay hold upon eternal life." We take things only by 
thought — so it is written — " He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a 
city," in consequence of the idea being greater than the mere symbol of it. Jesus also 
says — "Take no thought" — by which he means not to think. In French we have the 
idea of take well set forth in the word " comprendre" which means comprehend or 
understand fully, but in its parts it means to " take in the hands together." 

" Stone" means concentration. It indicates the -whole force of Truth in its appli- 
cation to each and every detail of the All-One-Being. We all remember how the stone 
has been used as a standard unit of measure. This confirms the fact that stone 
means concentration or focusing of the mind, necessary to perceive Truth. It is a 
common observation that one looking merely at the surface of things gets only what 
seems and not what is. We know the Truth by investigating causes. This is done by 
pointedly fixing the mind upon the internal nature of what is. The very first step in 
this is concentration, which is just the opposite of theorizing abstractly, for this is 
mere throwing dust in your own eyes. 

We know the widespread use of the grind-stone. Here is an illustration of the 
meaning of stone — namely, to sharpen — that is, to make the mind keen as the two-edged 
sword of the Spirit. The Divine Mind is not dull. A dull blade is in surgery the most 

-96- 



painful. The sharpness of the sword of the Spirit is so perfect that its cutting discern- 
ment is wholly painless. The reason there occurs What is called chemicalization in 
Healing Treatment is because the mental sword is not sharpened enough upon the 
stone of concentration. In the Scriptures we read of capital punishment by stoning. 
"We understand this, when Ave know that some blades and tools are so poor in quality 
that thev soon are all ground away. The stone is also used in polishing. Some jewels 
shine quick, just as some minds brighten easily by concentration. Stones are used in 
printing. It is called lithography. This is because concentration prints or stamps the 
Truth as our Nature. Stones are used as jewels, because praise and ornament for the 
mind comes with concentration. These jewels are worn on the hand, because a steady 
and focused mind is the assurance of skilled operation and doing. Sometimes stone- 
jewels have been worn in the ear, for this means that concentrated attention is sure to 
yield prompt obedience. Sometimes stone-jewels are worn in the nose, as we know 
that concentration is the essence of alert and accurate perception, for the nose is the 
pointer or index, as in the saying that everyone follows his nose. 

Stones are used in grinding flour for bread to eat. This shows us how concen- 
tration is the only way to prepare one to speak or think aright, for we have a saying, 
" think twice before you speak." "Be slow to speak" until the mind is ready by the 
refining, grinding preparation of concentration, which is no other an operation than 
meditating much upon the Oneness or Unity of God. It was this polishing communion 
which made Moses's face shine when he came down from the mount. Were they 
not stoning Stephen -when his face shone like an angel's ? But we well remember that 
it did not make Achan's face shine when they stoned him for plundering " devoted" 
booty, any more than the best emery-wheel could polish to radiancy a clay clod. 

Stones were used for striking fire, because our mind flashes with Intelligence by 
concentrated thought. Stones were used in erecting altars, for altar is the mental 
Ego, which is revealed by concentration upon the I AM. Stones are used in houses, 
and chiefly in their foundations. This is because the house is the body, which is built 
-wholly or anyway begun by concentration, for how can the mind know and realize its 
own nature or character — -that is, its body — except it focus its whole and undivided at- 
tention upon its Essence or Substance, which is God, the I AM THA T I AM. 

Stones are used to curb up wells and fountains, because we can keep at the true 
and real source and essence of our Being only by concentration ; or much definite com- 
munion with Divine Being preserves and keeps clean the well or fountain of All Be- 
ing. Stones are used to pave streets. This is because concentration is the law (way 
or street) of thinking (traveling). Jesus refers to himself as "the stone which the 
builders rejected which has become the head of the corner," because no one had con- 
centrated All Being (whether God or Man) upon the I AM as He did, for the I AM 
is the corner-stone, which we must not omit, else our building is on sand. 

We have a familiar saying that " a rolling stone gathers no moss," because with- 
out steady and regular concentration upon the One God, there can be no Life, as is 
indicated by green moss, for green is the living energy of Spring. They put stones at 

— 97 — 



the head of graves, because here is indicated the result of concentrating upon the false 
and external nature instead of the One God. 

We all can easily understand how poor a foundation is quicksand. This is be- 
cause quicksand is unfocused stones. It consists of myriads of little stones, kept from 
concentrating by interspersing water. This means that thinking which is not definite 
is delusive and ready to swallow up the heedless. Such is speculating in mind, which 
soon arrives at a state similar to what, in financial parlance, is called watered-stocks. 

We have all heard of the stone which Moses struck and obtained water for thirsty 
Israel in the wilderness. This is to teach that concentration is the source of Divine 
Intelligence, for water means thinking, and we all know the vanity of indefinite or 
unconcentrated thinking, which we call castle-building and day-dreaming. 

The rest of the clause is — '•'■the stone that he had put under his head." "Head" 
means the Ego — the I AM — the Identity. The Hebrew for this word translated 
'■'■head'''' is " pillows ," .and means the resting, abiding, necessitous nature of the / 
AM as Divine Being. The pillow is where we rest the head, thus where we identify 
the I AM, not by works, but by self-evidence and spiritual intuition — more generally 
termed common or horse-sense. It is called horse-sense because horse means strength, 
sturdy and rugged, and intense practicality. When we say not by works, we mean 
that works without mind to govern and direct them are mere waste efforts, like trying 
to pulverize rocks with a fist instead of a mall, or driving piles with a tack-hammer. 

When he says — "And took the stone which he had placed for his pillows" — it 
means — he concentrated his mind upon his Identity, his I AM, in peace and rest. The 
word "placed" or u put" indicated the taking or thinking in, a state of mind, since 
place means state. 

It goes on — " and set it (the stone) up for a pillar' 1 '' (or statue). A pillar or 
statue is the same idea as is taught in altar, which is the Law or Order of the Ego, or 
/ AM, or Identity. God is Order, Law, Science, Mind, Force, Principle, Source, 
Cause. Jesus taught that God is Order, when he says — "JAM the Way." Gautama 
Buddha spoke the same Truth when he says — "I AM the Path." Moses gave the 
same doctrine in these words — " I AM the Lord thy God," for Lord means Law, and 
its Hebrew equivalent — Jehovah — means the nature or law of Self-Existent Being. 

Let us look at the sense of statute, as meaning Law or Nature. A statue or pillar 
is a fixed or stamped image of some thing or person, as we have statues of Lincoln, 
Washington, etc. This means that their character is engraved or wrought into the 
fiber and make-up of our national history, so that they are now forces or laws in our 
civilization. We have statues of Shakespeare, and his influence is stronger than any 
law on our statute-books. The very word— statute — comes from statue, and is the 
name given to law-books. Our physical bodies are statues, for they are our visible 
characters ; they index our minds and are our books of judgment, our statute books. 
That Jacob " set up this stone for a pillar or statue," means that he decided, from cer- 
tain self-evidence, that concentration of the mind upon the I AM in peace and rest is 
the law of Being, by which Man and God is One Supreme and only Being. 

_ 9 8_ 



Then the verse reads — " and poured oil upon the head of it." Now the word — 
"poured" — teaches us very intensely the nature of peace, as signified by "oil." We 
have a saying that a mother fours out her heart upon her children. Now pour indi- 
cates the flow of the feelings, as the flow of the blood. If our feelings are high and 
zealous and full of excitement and interest, our blood flows rapidly. In anger the 
blood sometimes boils and sometimes almost ceases to flow. We say of an industrious 
student, he pores over his books, because his feelings flow in eager aspirations after his 
studies. Now we know that feelings, if reduced to their real nature, are thoughts 
carried out in words and acts. To pour oil is then to think in words, or in deeds, ideas 
of peace. 

Do not imagine that peace is a mere stupid sentiment, for this is only the false 
image of peace, such as overtakes the wine-bibber, long at his cups and reduced to 
stupefaction. Peace is a force like that which stilled the waves of Galilee under the 
command of Jesus; like that which has quelled many an angry mob in times of violence 
and riot, when some noble, manly mind stood forth in the name of Law and Order. 

Often our Oriental and not a few of our Western people have seemed to think 
that the still and dead weeds of tobacco and opium gave peace to restless nerves and 
unstrung Abets; but the peace of opium is mirage. The sleep of laudanum is not 
" balmy nature's sweet restorer." There is no narcotic able to appease a conscience, 
either that is spleeny or a chronic invalid. Whoso practices the I AM to forgive all, 
will soon be able to forgive himself, for it is written that if we forgive others, our 
Father (our I AM, our Faith, our Self-evidence) is ready and willing to forgive us. 

Some may imagine that it is the easiest thing in the world to forgive ourselves, 
but no one who does not cultivate a charitable and forgiving disposition by practicing 
loving and forgiving others, can ever be able to forgive himself. Anyone may verify 
this for himself. 

The pouring of the oil means the flowing of the affections into peace, which is re- 
flected upon the panorama-like walls of the flesh as a healthy body. The peaceful flow 
of the affections is of Divine Love — which we know as Love to God in religion 
and Love to our neighbor in the Golden Rule of civil conduct. 

The pouring of oil upon the head of the pillar, or statue, or stone, means the 
peaceful Love of God, reflected as Love to Man. The head of the statue or stone is 
the / A M, which is God and Man as One Being. It teaches to love your neighbor as 
yourself — that is, to identify your Ego, your Identity, your I AM, Yourself, with God 
and with Man — thus following the example of Jesus Christ and being God-Man — 
" Deus Homo" — thus a Christian. Every Christian must be Christ, because the Man 
that is God is called the Lord's Christ. 

Thus the creed of Athanasius reads — " That in Christ, God and Man, or the Di- 
vine and the Human, are not two, but in one person (that is, Ego, Identity, / AM); 
and that as the rational soul and flesh is one man (that is, mortal, no-man), so God and 
Man is One Christ." 

In Jesus Christ, God has said— I AM MAN. Now Man must say— / AM GOD. 

— 99 — 



Then there is Peace. Surely if God is willing to be Man, Man must be willing to be 
God. This Oneness of God and Man is "peace on earth, good will to Man." Peace 
is the oil of joy, of which the Psalmist says — " Behold how good and how pleasant it 
is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil upon the head." 
(Psalm 133:1 and 2). 

{Preached at Akron, O., Nov. 2, 15,90.] 



GETHSEMANE III. Peace (Oil). 

We now are led to discuss the nature of Peace under the symbol of oil in its rela- 
tion to leprosy, which means the confusion, contradictions, and heresies caused by 
reading and understanding the Word or Scriptures in the literal, or merely apparent 
sense. Let it be thoroughly understood that in Truth there never was or can be any 
disease on the face of the earth, because God is All, as Health. Therefore, there is no. 
disease of leprosy, any more than there are snakes in the boots of the drunkard, or 
stars of fire in your eyes when you bump your head on the ice. 

Now, just as the imaginary serpents in the eyes of the drunkard signify that he has 
deceived himself into the notion that he likes strong drink and that it is a source of 
Life and Spirit, for the snake means deception, and in the boots means in the externals 
of common sense :,just as stars of fire in the head that has had a concussion or stroke 
means that the I AM (that is the. head) in spoken word (that is struck) is light (that 
is stars or flashes of fire): just so the vanity of leprosy means the state of not being in 
the spiritual understanding of Truth, but seeing only with the flesh-eyes both the 
Scriptures and Nature. 

When we thus unite the Scriptures and Nature, we mean to say in the eyes of 
Divinity Nature is one of the empty pictures and the Bible another, of the Infinite 
Word of God. In themselves neither Nature nor the Scriptures (and in this we in- 
clude all Religious as well as Secular-Apocryphal literature that has really lodged in 
the heart of the race, for nothing is of chance or mischance in the realm of All-Good) 
are aught intrinsically, but inasmuch as All-Being is Self-Visible in spite of these 
mirrors, thoroughly polished by full-fledged denial, we love the glory of Christ, 
brought forth from the tomb of the letter into the day-star of Spirit, translated into 
the right hand of power as God Almighty. 

Now, leprosy is a skin disease, just as Nature and Scripture is the skin or garment 
of Spirit. So Maimonides, the great Jewish Talmudist teaches in his "Guide to the 
Perplexed" that the flesh of our bodies and the matter of Nature and the Bible is but a 
patch of veiling across the face or visibility of God. Thus the famous German poet — 
Goethe — called Nature the tailoring of Deity woven and fashioned in the loom of 
Nature in these words in Faust — 

"So schaff' ich am sausenden Web-stuhle der Zeit, 
Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid." 



Skin is the outside of the body or nature, or character. Just as there are windows 
and ventilations and doors in houses, so the skin is full of pores and openings — besides 
the mouth, eyes, etc. There are ways into and out of the body, just as there are laws 
by which we can get into certain states of mind and also out of them. The health of 
the physical bodv depends mostly upon the freedom of exit from it, so that the eyes 
and ears and pores must be open to be in good health. So the law by which we are 
holy is that which frees us from the body and mind of flesh, for "it is not what goeth 
into a man, but what cometh out of a man, that defileth him." 

One of the signs of leprosy is that the hair in the spot of the plague be white. 
This is because hair means the practicality or strength of externals. The hair being 
white means that the letter or form or ordinance is not respected even as an external — 
that is. its deadness is manifest. 

That hair covers the head is because the I AM of us all is well-nigh hidden in its 
everv-day practicalities. For who of the millions that use the I A A/ a. thousand times 
a day think of its being the name of God ? 

It has been one form of asceticism to shave the head, thus to show that the I AM 
is set apart to God. There are also various forms of partial tonsure — as half shaving 
the head, which means the recognition of two natures in mortal man, one Divine / 
..-Ll/and one undivine I Am, there being in Truth but One Being — Christ, the God- 
Man — the One Eternal All I AM. 

The tonsure of the cheeks indicates a bold identification with the / AM, that is 
God, for the cheeks are the places which signifv a state of boldness and assurance, as 
is said a ''cheeky" person in a somewhat colloquial phrase. There are two cheeks, 
for there is a law of holv boldness, as St. John says — "We have boldness towards 
God;" and again we read that we are "to come with boldness to the, throne of grace" 
— that is we shall be bold in our word of the / AM (that is, throne) as to Love (thatis 
"grace"'). Thus signifies the tonsure of the cheeks, as may be fully verified by 
the use of the words "cheeks" and "hair" in Scripture and in Nature. Jesus says — "he 
that smitteth thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also." This means although 
your heart condemn you when you boldly say I Am Good (that is "smiteth thee on 
thy right cheek"), still do not flinch if your heart condemn you, but insist on saying 
not only / Am Good, but also I Am Truth — that is, it is true that I AM GOD. For 
the left cheek has reference to boldness as to Truth, and to strike is to speak against, 
that is, to deny. 

In I. Kings 22-24, we read — "And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near 
and smote Micaiah on the cheek.' 1 In this passage we find the strife so common to all 
between the evidently evil present, joined with the notion of a retributing justice in 
the future, and the Love of the Now as full of perfect satisfaction and contentment 
Some very valuable doctrine on this subject is contained in the arcana of this chapter. 
(I. Kgs, 22.) We simply notice this verse as it contains one of the verifications of the 
word cheek, as boldness in the absolute doctrine. Zedekiah means the Justice of 
Jehovah, and is called the son of Chenaanah, which is the feminine form of Canaan, 



101 



because Canaan means the joy of hope — the bright, glorious, but mirage-like phantoms 
of the future — the land of promise, but never of realization. So we see that Zedekiah 
the son of Chenaanah means the love of the future when Jehovah shall render unto us 
justice for our well-doing. This is why the man Zedekiah in this chapter is called a 
false prophet,' for the doctrine of future bliss is ever a falsity and a snare of progress, 
a grave full of dead hopes — bones. 

But Micaiah, which is another form of Micah, means '■'■who is like yehovah" and 
since likeness means the love of the Now, because we are like -what we now love, so 
Micaiah is called the true prophet in this chapter, because he is bold enough to tell 
the Truth that Jehovah is Now, that Success is Now, and that the only satisfaction 
consists in putting away Zedekiah of Chenaanah — the hope of truth in the future — 
and loving intensely the Now Good and Perfection. The reason therefore that in this 
verse Zedekiah smote Micaiah is that the notion of futurity always denies out of our 
reach the true idea of the Now-Love ; and that the smiting was upon the cheek means 
that the idea of Micaiah that all our good is not future, but actually now seems 
bold, and thus we see how cheek means boldness in the Truth. 

David says — " O! my God ; for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek 
bone" (Psalm 3:7), by which he means that his Divine I AM Nature denies away 
any contrary nature, even though it were bold enough to say it were substance (that 
is, " cheek bone"), notwithstanding God is the only Being that can say "/ AM 
Substance?'' 

In Deut. 18:3 we read — "that they shall give unto the priest the shoulder, the 
two cheeks, and the maw." This is the food for the Levitical priesthood, which means 
the statements of faith — that is, the self-evident words of Truth, since Levi means 
"joined," which is feeling, being the union of all the senses, and then feeling means 
faith, the Divine Sense of Atonement, which is Self-evident Oneness. That they are 
priests is their Divine Identity, they stood in God's stead. But we are all now "kings 
and priests unto God." Jesus is called a Priest, for he says — "/ AM the Way" — the 
Law — thus priest is the Law of the I AM, for the only Divine Ordinance is the I AM 
Word-Thought, the identification or Oneness with God in the / AM State of Mind. 
Since "shoulder" means power, as might be verified throughout the universe, that the 
priest had the shoulder to eat signifies that we must say — "/ AM Omnipotent." The 
word which Isaiah prophesied, saying — "The government shall rest upon his shoul- 
der," and which Jesus applied to himself, saying — "All power is given unto me, both 
in heaven and on earth," we must also take to ourselves, and so follow him and keep 
his word, and thus not see death. Since "two cheeks" means necessitous boldness, 
we must say — / AM obliged to be bold and dauntless, full of all strength and courage. 
As Joel advises — "Let the weak say — / AM strong." (3:10.) Since "maw" or 
stomach means the place or state of digestion or asssimilation — that is the comprehend- 
ing and appropriating of Truth — thus intelligence, so we are to say — / AM 
Intelligence. 

But we return to our word hair as in tonsure. The tonsure of the chin is the de-' 

— 102 — 



nial of any carnal intellect or stubbornness. The tonsure of the upper lip is the denial 
of external pride and worldly ambition. 

We read also that if " the appearance of the plague be deeper than the skin of his 
flesh, it is the plague of leprosy." This signifies — since deep means futurity — that if 
one's hopes be also literal, as well as his present view of things, then is his spirituality 
non-est. We read also that " if*there be quick raw flesh in the rising, it is old leprosy'' 
This is when one says — I AM Spirit, and still thinks and acts upon the notion that he 
is flesh and carnal. That is when there is enough spirituality in one to occassionally 
break open the dry husk or skin of formalities, and so present the appearance of being 
" double-minded," and so " unstable in all his ways." 

We read also that •' if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pro?iounce 
him clean.''' This is because it is safe to be wholly external, rather than partly ex- 
ternal and partly internal. To know the Truth and still not to speak it is worse than not 
to know it at all. Thus to know the power of mind and yet to imagine that there is 
any evil mental force, is to forget that the Truth and the Good are eternally married. 
To know that the Scriptures and Nature have real and true significance only in Spirit, 
and yet to find any Good in their literal sense, is to be pulled asunder and divorced in 
Life, which is chaos. But to be wholly literal is easier'on the principle that " ignor- 
ance is bliss." We must be either God or nothing ; both we cannot be, for God is All. 

We are given to know what '■'■leprosy in the boil" means. When the mind is full 
of hot word-thoughts, as from anger or zeal, the blood boils, and the result is eruption 
in the skin, or pale and sickly skin, as if scantily supplied with blood for capillary 
operations. When water boils there is a sediment, if impure ; and also it evaporates or 
wastes away. So, likewise, when the blood boils there is a sediment, if it be impure 
or contain poison, which causes breaking of exit in the skin ; and also the blood wastes 
away and leaves the skin-capillaries in want, and then comes paleness and debility, as 
the result of vain thinking. This is all an empty picture of zeal or lust after externals. 
And if such zeal or lust be poisoned with what the doer would condemn as sinful acts 
of selfishness and rivalry to gain by any means, fair or foul, the external end, the lees 
or sediments of such a false consciousness are what is termed by symbol the leprosy in 
the boil. But although there may be hot zeal after externals — that is, the things of 
this life of vanity and emptiness — still they may not be sought after with means that 
wound the conscience, for the conscience of external (as it were skin) people is very 
sore and liable to both self-condemnation and accusation of others. Such pleople dwell 
only on the surface of the world and are tight-laced with every dogma and prejudice 
that either floats in public opinion or is haltered to some creed or sect, secular or re- 
ligious. There is no poison in the thoughts of such ones, save as it is inoculated by 
others, and so they are those signified by the scar of the boil in the skin, but clean of 
the plague of leprosy, because it did not spread in the skin, thus indicating the meager 
and short influence of such characters ; and because the spot or boil is not deeper than 
the skin, thus they are not far-sighted with the telescope of hope into the phantom of 
the literal and material heaven of futurity ; and because the hair in the boil is not 

— 103 — 



turned white, thus to indicate that they have an apparent utility, as it were social bal- 
last to keep the mortal dream right side up, with enough persuasion of present reality 
to keep intact for germination the chit of the seed of vanity — just as is the common 
saying, it is better to have our bad feelings come out in tears and scoldings, and skin 
boils, etc., than to let them fester, decay and pain us within — for small-pox and measles 
that abide within never heal save with entire physical, eradication — called the change 
of death — a shadow of nothing forever "abolished" in Christ. 

We read that there was also the '■'leprosy of burning" which appeared in the quick 
flesh of the skin. This signifies what happens when great ardor for externalities ap- 
pears to give rise to outbursts of eloquence and poetry, so that -the Truth of Spirit, 
leaks out, just as the Jews in the wilderness were commanded not to approach the 
mount where Moses was with the Lord (that is, the high state of mind, which is Real 
Being) lest the Presence of God burst forth and consume them. Thus burning leprosy 
signifies, when external things are burned away and, as Jesus says, they come into the 
Kingdom of Heaven by violence. 

[Preached at Akron, O., Nov. 9, 1890.] 



GETHSEMANE IV. 

Peace (Oil) — As to Leprosy (Externals). 

'■'■Leprosy of the head" means the identification by the L AM with flesh and 
carnal mind, instead of identification with Divine Being. This is because the head is the 
/ AM, as Jesus Christ is called the head of the Church, his body, for he identified 
himself with God, saying " I and the Father are One," and " He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father." Everyone who does not follow Jesus Christ in this respect is 
signified by having leprosy in the head, because the only excuse for not so doing is 
that we think that we must be or are identified with the mind of the flesh, which is the 
empty and void skin of Being, the only state of leprosy, the belief in acting from 
externals. If a man have leprosy of the head, it means that we refuse to say, "I AM 
Divine Wisdom ," because we believe that there is some other sort of intelligence 
which we might be. By a woman 's having leprosy of the head, it signifies that we 
imagine there is some carnal love we might be, although we know and say that 
Divine Love is All and in All, and yet refuse to say, " I AM Divine Love." 

By a " bald head" is meant an impotent or impractical identity. That is, one 
who constantly and emphatically speaks from the LAM and yet has no authority, because 
what he says cannot be applied; a man full of theories and yet never up to anything. 
When the urchins said to the prophet Elisha — "Go up, thou bald head," and two she- 
bears came out and destroyed them — it means that whenever any strong idea or 
advanced Truth comes to a certain class of ignorant minds, they at once begin to ridi- 
cule it as only a theory and wholly impractical, and their literal understanding of the 

— 104 — 



Scriptures and everything else destroys their salvation. Bear means the love of igno- 
rance, from the false notion that it is wisdom — it is a sort of dull, self-satisfied condi-- 
tion or state of mind which holds tight in the bonds of prejudice and hereditary 
opinion the carnal intellect and will of both the learned and unlearned — just as a bear 
hugs his victim to death. A " she-bear'''' is a symbol of deep-rooted love of conserva- 
tism, in which so many are entombed by prejudice. 

We read in Leviticus of leprosv in the " bald forehead" Now forehead means — 
I AM the Visible God. So leprosy in the forehead signifies the common saying that 
God is manifest onlv as to externals, but that God himself is invisible. The baldness 
of this means that such a notion is supremely impractical, for an invisible God is also 
a useless God. And who is not able to observe that the so-called invisible God of 
Christendom is well-nigh worthless? 

Leprosv in the chin means determined love of externals and rigid performance of 
emptv rites and ceremonies in which no Spirit is recognized. This is shown by the 
beard's turning white and coming out, thus signifying that ere long the respect for and 
the dignity of formalities is gone, when they are carried out merely for their own sake. 
Thus so often has the history of the Church seen its spiritless ordinances become objects 
of reproach and ridicule. 

In Lev. 13:45, 46, we read — ; ' And the leper i?i whom the plague is, his clothes 
shall be rent, and the hair of his head shall go loose, and he shall cover his upper lip, 
and shall cry — Unclean, Unclean. All the days -wherein the plague is in him he shall 
be unclean ; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his dxvelling 
be." We may notice but a few of the myriads of arcana visible to the eye of the Spirit 
in these verses. 

" The leper" is anyone who has put false and external words after his / AM, 
thus " taking the name of his God in vain," thus thinking himself a mortal and in the 
flesh with a carnal mind. " His clothes" are his vain, false words, with which he 
has profaned his Divine Nature. They " shall be rent," for such empty words must 
be divorced from the I AM. It need not be emphasized that the carnal mind and its 
body of flesh is constantly rent with woes and vexations and diseases. A study of the 
Bible use of the word " rend" and " rent" would verify and much enlarge our com- 
prehension of this passage. We must let it be enough to notice that at the crucifixion 
of Jesus "the veil of the temple was rent and rocks rent." " The veil of the temple" is 
the fleshly or carnal mind and its body, for the veil stands for the psychic-mind and 
the temple the body of flesh. These are what are called in the above passage, clothes. 
The rending is the separating of the I AM by annulling the law of identification in 
the word spoken — that is, by denial — the cross. In Ezekiel 30:16, we read — "No, 
shall be rent asunder," — that is, the nothing is seen to be nothing and no longer mixed 
with the Reality, for the leper " dwells alone." 

That '■'■the hair of his head shall go loose " means that one who has put confidence in 
mortal strength or in trying to merit his Divine Nature, thinking to purchase or bribe 
the gift of the Spirit with fair deeds of external morality and rigid formal asceticism 

— 105 — 



must free (go loose) his I AM from every notion of there being any other power than 
his own I AM GOD. " Shall cover his upper lip " signifies that anyone whose whole 
character is external mnst and will by the nature of things be driven to find his true 
nature in being totally bereft of every source and object of worldly pride, for in the 
upper lip is the muscle — that is, the motive — of haughtiness and outward display and 
ambition. " Shall cry — Unclean, unclean' 1 '' means that external people are forced by 
Divine Providence — that is, the Law of Divine and Only Being — to deny utterly their 
carnal nature as wholly nothing. That the word "unclean" is twice repeated means 
that such a state of things is necessitous, because two means Law, Force, Necessity, 
Power. " All the days wherein the plague is in him, he shall be unclean" signifies 
that there must be none of the externalities of mortality visible in his mind or con- 
science — for days are visibility. The conscience must be thoroughly purged of ordi- 
nances and good works as means to an end, for they are merely results, of which it is 
written " let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." 

" He is unclean'''' means that mortality or externality is nothing, and must be 
washed off that Reality may be visible." " He shall dwell alo?ze" means that we are 
not able to hold that we are two natures — that is, Spiritual and carnal — dwelling 
together in one body, for we read — " without the camp (that is, the true nature, the 
state or place of the real spiritual Israel) shall his dwelling be." 

We will now proceed to comment briefly upon vs. 47-59 incl. of Lev. 13, without 
quoting it all (read from text at this point). Leprosy in a woolen garment means 
when one gets to saying words of pure affirmation by rote without understanding. 
This is the vain repetition of which Jesus speaks. That a woolen garment signifies 
pure words of affirmation is evident from the fact that the wool is white, thus denoting 
purity; that it is a warm clothing, denoting the loving nature of affirmation; that is, 
comes from the sheep or lamb, which is the meek and docile animal that always says 
— " yea, yea." 

Leprosy in a linen garment means denyiizg by rote without any understanding. 
That " linen " means pure denial is plain, for linen is white, denoting purity; 
that it is a cold clothing, thus denoting the nature of denial, as apart from affirmation; 
that it is universally used as a garment of cleansing and purifying, as it is worn by 
waiters and caterers to evidence cleanliness. No one but knows that soiled linen is 
nowadays a token of extreme untidiness. Then also, linen is manufactured from the 
fiber of the stem of the flax plant, and thus is not a flower or fruit like cotton or an 
animal fruit like wool, thus signifying that denial is a power (as the supporting fiber 
in the stem of the flax plant) and that denial is never a result, but rather a method or law 
of purifying. This meaning of the word linen may be verified throughout the Scrip- 
tures. We may add one more fact of interest, namely — that the same plant (flax or 
linum) that produces the linen from the stem yields a very valuable and much used 
oil from the seed, thus signifying that denial is the law of peace, as the linen in the 
stem fiber is the way to the seed in which is the oil. Thus peace and freedom 
come of denial and is made a parable in Nature, for all Nature as well as the 

— 106 — 



Bible is a book, in which is written in symbols the Truth of Science as God, 
as Man. 

We read also of leprosy in the -warp and in the woof. Each has its own signifi- 
cance, which by our I AM Being of Omniscience we know and are given to reveal. 
•' In the warp" is, in the Hebrew, in a woven cloth. Now a woven cloth is one in 
which the fibers are laid along side by side over and under a warp. This means the 
word as to Truth, for Truth pertains to form — that is, state. So leprosy in the warp 
signifies external, seeming truth — that is, falsity or nothingness. 

" In the woof' in the Hebrew, is a knitted cloth. We read where Paul speaks of 
our nature being " knit together in Love." A study of the use of the word " knit" in 
the Bibles of the race will confirm anyone in the Truth that " to knit" means to love. 
We know that knitting is mainly done by women, who are the Love element in hu- 
manity. We have a saying in describing a scowl as to knit the eyebrows, for the op- 
posite, as it were, of Love is hatred, and the eyebrows are the external strength of 
understanding, and external loving is hating. So leprosy in the woof is external love — 
that is, hatred and all its crew. We know that the muscles of the body are knit, as it 
were, together, while the nerves and fibers are, as it were, woven together. This is 
because the nerves and fibers are the lines of intelligence, or sensation, or Truth ; while 
the muscles are the motives of the body (that is, its Love), and are composed of cells, 
which are knitted together. 

Leprosy in the garment is called '■'■fretting leprosy" because putting vain, external 
Cas it were, skin) words after our I AM is sure to fill us with vexations, so that we 
worry and fret in our vain non-being. Leprous garments were to be burned, which 
signifies that all literal things and words must be translated into the Spiritual sense, for 
the word to burti means, in the Hebrew, to cause to ascend, thus teaching the 
doctrine of translation or ascension. In Jesus, who is the Word, we find a transfigur- 
ation, which is what we are now doing to the Scriptures and Nature — causing the 
Spirit to shine their dull, dead aspect wholly away ; and also in Jesus there was an as- 
cension, which means not only a departure from the literal and external world, but 
also a staying away. 

Having put the Divine Wisdom with our I AM, saying, I AM Omniscience, we 
shall find and do find the Bible and Nature One Universe of Intelligence, so infinitely 
glorious, so bright with interwoven and inter-knitted Intelligence and Love, that we do 
at every step walk the high-ways of Heaven, in no figure, but in actual fact. 

Let me urge you all to stick with most earnest love to the saying — / know. I 
AM an actual -witness and demonstration before your eyes of its power to inspire and 
reveal. Now the Bible and all Nature is to me an open book, from which I shall con- 
tinue to read the wonders of Divine Love' as operating in Divine Wisdom to all, never 
once forgetting to let flow from my heart and mind the ever-abundant fountain of 
thanksgiving from God to God forever. 

{Preached at Akron, O., Nov. 16, 1890.] 



107 — 



JESUS CHRIST. 

We need not discuss the historical position and character of the Adam of Naza- 
reth. This might feed the curiosity of other Adams ; but the members of the true 
Church can give attention only to the " anointed" God-Man. If our peace of soul 
and surety of happiness and heavenly love depended upon whether or not we could 
whip up our credulity to believe implicitly in the Biblical history of the Old or New 
Testaments, we must abide in doubt. Whether or not any Nazarene was born the 
son of Joseph and Mary, counts for naught. Whether or not he tallies with the 
prophesies of the Jewish or other Sacred Books signifies nothing. 

If we insist upon calling Jesus Christ the son of Joseph, we directly contra- 
dict his teaching, which above all emphasized the doctrine — "Call no man your 
Father upon earth, for one is your Father which is in Heaven." Did not Jesus 
teach us to say — "our Father" — to God? Shall we then call him the son of a fleshly 
Joseph? 

Do you imagine that the Christ could thank Matthew and Luke for cumbering 
his name with a prodigious pedigree? He had denied it all away. You can find 
that Luke calls him the son of Joseph with the conscience-smitten qualification — "as 
was supposed." How plainly we see now that all this ancestral explanation was to win 
over the Jews, who were looking for one in the family of David. Was not Jesus him- 
self especially careful to put off this tradition in these words — "And Jesus answered 
and said as he taught in the Temple — How say the Scribes that the Christ is the son 
of David? David himself said in the Holy Spirit: The Lord said unto my Lord, 
sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. 
David himself calleth him Lord, and whence is he his son? And the common 
people heard him gladly." (Mark 12:35, 3^» 37-) Mark and John do not waste time 
upon the personal origin of one who had put out as nothing all fleshly ways. Neither 
of these disciples refer to the well-known tradition of the immaculate conceptio'n, be- 
cause they knew that God is both his Father and his Mother, as of us all. 

Jesus denied his fleshly mother just as absolutely as he did his fleshly father. 
In fact he made a general sweeping denial of all his family and relatives in Adam. 
Once, we read, that his relatives tried to arrest him, thinking he was beside himself 
for putting them away so absolutely and making such bold and startling announce- 
ments regarding himself. Mary said to him in. the Temple — "Son, why hast thou 
dealt thus with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee, sorrowing." And he 
said unto them — "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Here 
Mary calls Joseph his father and Jesus denies them both not only by his words but 
also by his conduct. Again — "While he yet talked with the people, his. mother 
and brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him, and one said unto him, be- 
hold thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. But 
he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my 
brethren? and he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and said — Behold 

— 108 — 



my mother and my brethren ! for whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is 
in Heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother." Had he not been thus ab- 
solute with himself, he could not have said to us — "If any man come unto me and hate 
not his own father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea 
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.'' 

Who then shall dare call Jesus Christ a man of flesh? They err very greatly who 
call Christ Adam. There is no flesh. There is no Adam. Jesus Christ is all in all. 
The doctrine of the immaculate conception by the Virgin Mary is quite as Pharisaic 
and traditional with us as that Christ must be the son of David was among the Jews. 
Inasmuch as Jesus Christ was flesh, he firojitetli nothing, according to his own 
words. Suppose the apostles did say he came in the flesh, yet we know that 
our Truth and Life is not in flesh, but in Spirit, the only true and real Being. We do 
not get our understanding of Being from traditions and ancient records, but from the 
Spirit of Truth within us — our Spirit. By the Spirit in us we know all things, and 
without it we know nothing at all. 

If Jesus Christ were flesh, he were not assuredly the Truth, since the flesh is 
vanity and not Truth. Be reasonable. Flee traditions. Let your mind escape preju- 
dices. Burst from the mirage of the senses. Let the eyes of your Spirit be open 
to know that Jesus Christ — the Spirit of Holy Truth — is now in your thinking, 
standing at the focus,, the threshold, the /, the Ego-Identity of your conscious Being, 
readv to speak you free and powerful. "Behold / stand at the door and knock : if 
anv man hear my voice and open the door, / will come in unto him, and will sup with 
him, and he with me. He that overcometh, / will give to him to sit down with me 
in my throne." "To him will / give authority over the nations : and he shall rule 
them with a rod of iron." 

"Door" means mouth, or word, or idea ; "knock" is to speak, or think; "sup" is 
to commune with our words and thoughts; "overcome" is oneness with Divine Be- 
ing by identification in word and thought; "throne" is the Ego-Identity of authority 
in Being; "nations" means nature, character, quality, affairs, conditions, all things; 
"rod" is law, necessity, the "must be" of "what is"; "iron" is changeless substance; 
with these hints you may read the passage and know its Spirit. 

We read that Jesus Christ was baptized by John. Why not then we also? Did 
he not say — "ye must be born of water?" This for the hardness of their hearts, for 
water means conscious and cleansing denial. If you stumble at it your blindness 
is paid in the empty coin of formalism, which can never set the heart right, or the 
mind firm and true. Do you not read that Jesus was on the eighth day circumcised ? 
Shall you not then also be circumcised? Yes, but in your heart and mind. The 
scales shall be cut from your eyes, and the flesh of your ears shall be cut out by the 
sword of the Spirit, even the word of the "I AM." We know that Jesus never bap- 
tized with water, but always with power. Thus Paul discerned between the baptism 
of Jesus and John in Acts 19. 

By what authority do we take one testimony from Scripture and reject others? 

— 109 — 



By the Spirit of the Highest, which is in all, having the unction of the Holy One, 
whereby we know* all things. "But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of 
God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 
But let him ask in faith (self-evidence), nothing doubting." (James 1:5, 6. R.V.) 

Jesus Christ says — "I AM the Door." This is a parable, because the Jews were 
blinded and veiled by flesh. By "door," he meant entrance, the way in. In another 
place he says — "I AM the Way." The "door" or "way" into the body is the mouth. 
Now no mouth can speak without the Ego- word — / — either expressed, or understood. 
So — "/ AM the Door." "By your words are you justified and by your words con- 
demned." "It is not what goeth into, but what cometh out of a man that defileth 
him." The /is always present, always here. This is self-evident, so I AM Omnipresence. 
The / is the necessity of Being. There can be no Being without the Ego, the I. So 
I AM Omnipotence. "All power is given unto me (I AM) both in Heaven and on 
earth." There must be the /to know anything. So I know all things, and I AM Om- 
niscience. The supreme and only statement of Being is and must be / By the /, Jesus 
Christ knew all things, having never been taught in the schools. He put to shame 
the doctors in the Temple and the Pharisees and Scribes in the streets and synagogues. 
He spake with authority. Your Ego is the same as that of Jesus Christ, therefore it 
shall be your only refuge, for it is the name of God Almighty, Eternal Being. The 
Being of God, the Being of Jesus, the Being of us all, is Eternally One Being, and 
called the / "My God and your God." "OneFather," "one faith," one self-evidence. 
"No man cometh unto the Father but by me (/)." "Whosoever cometh unto me 
(the self-evident, necessitous, conscious /) I will in nowise cast out." 

The sooner we all stick to the fact that we do not ever and cannot ever get one 
atom of genuine and lasting satisfaction from an external good — an external God — 
and rivet our trust upon our own Divine Self-hood, our perfect Divine Nature, of 
which we partake together with the Saints in Light, our Emanuel, our God in 
us, the one-all Being, the better. Externality is pure illusion, "the Kingdom of Heav- 
en is within you." Heaven is called a Kingdom because the Law is vested in one — 
the Law of Love is oneness, unity. The name of the King is / It is called the King- 
dom of God, because I know that it is, good to be. No one could be glad not to be. 

As we all have the /as the constant word of our mouths, we all have the key to 
the Kingdom of Heaven. Let your Ego pierce good and true words, which cannot 
but draw up within you the Divine Constitution, which is now and forever your un- 
veiled nature. This is the meaning of the Spear of Calvary, the Sword of the Spirit, 
by which Adam is no more, and Jesus Christ is eternally triumphant, the Jehovah- 
Nissi, self-evident and necessitous success. 



Jesus gave the keys of Heaven to Peter, because when he said — "Whom say ye that 
I am ?" — that is, what words do }-ou put after the / of Being? *Peter called the 1 
li The Son of the Living God." When I tell you that speaking good and true words 
after your / shows you the Heaven of peace and power and love within you now, I 
give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Many would imagine that God 
is glorified in running Man down. So they labour to be humble, and succeed in 
mockery. Such worship lands one in the grip of hard conditions. God -is glorified in 
Man — that is, in praising him, not in blaspheming him. Man is as Divine as God 
is. There is no Adam. Since all things are of God, there cannot possibly be any- 
thing that is not Divine. Worship is never criticism, it must be praise. To disparage 
anything is to blaspheme God, for God is All. We speak as highly of Jesus Christ by 
calling him Man as by calling him God. To make any distinction between Jesus 
and Christ and God and Man is not Science, is not Spirit, is nothing. There is no 
such thing as difference. Being is One, is All. 

To distinguish between that which is and that which is not is no distinction, since 
that which is not is nothing, and there can be no distinction concerning it, and that 
which is, is one, in which, there can be no distinction at all. We speak no more 
highly of our / when we say — I AM God, than we do when we say — I AM Man, for 
Man-God is one Being. If we say — I am flesh and blood and bones, we say — Be- 
ing or God-Man is flesh and blood and bones, and by our words are we judged, for 
we then subject ourselves to the laws of the flesh-race. We must say — / AM what I 
AM— Spirit, Mind. 

If we say — I am flesh, we call Christ Adam. If we say — / A M Jesus Christ, we 
live by him, since he is in us and we in him by our Ego-word of Life and Truth and 
Love. Beware lest you think this is saying — I am Jesus of Nazareth, once born of 
Mary and Joseph, now re-fleshed. This is saying — I am flesh. But say we all must — 1 
AM Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Eternal Jehovah of all Being, for 
apart from Christ we are nothing. "Except ye abide in me and I abide in you, ye 
can do nothing." All tilings are ours through Jesus Christ, the God-Man. Jesus says — 
"Of myself I can do nothing," which is another statement of his teaching that "the 
flesh profiteth nothing." But as he knew that the / of him and of all is the Divine 
Ego, the Jehovah-Identity, he savs — "/and my Father are one," "he that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father also." 

There have been written a great many lives of Jesus Christ, but they are all per- 
sonal histories. They only fill the race of Adam with curiosity. But the Adam 
Jesus is nothing, and can not be Jesus Christ, who is of one Substance with God. 
The record of the fleshly Jesus must be a tale of death, since mortal non-being is 
death. This is the case in these stories of Jesus, for we find them dealing very at 
length upon his birth and death, and snatching at every dusty fragment of Adam 
biography. This is rank idolatry. The Adam-Jesus is an idol, and all who seek this 
body of flesh must die. It is as much in error to believe in and hold in mind the phys- 
ique and brains of the "second" Adam as of our own vain bodies and carnal 

— in — 



minds. Those who worship the "second" Adam shall be hurt of the "second" 
death." 

Because of this thinking and studying continually both in churches and sun- 
day-schools concerning the personal life of the Nazarene — that is, seeking his body in 
the tomb, even though "he is risen" — we find no true church in the dead edifices of 
wood and stone. To fill the mind and heart of children with the fables of the manger- 
cradle at Bethlehem or the hideous murder at Golgotha is to offend these little ones, 
and better were it for the teachers of such lies and dreams of idiocy and horror to have 
a mill-stone about their necks and dropped in the sea-depths. While any one 
thinks that Jesus Christ was ever born into or died out of the flesh, he is dead and 
cannot live. 

Jesus Christ is Spirit. His Eternal sign is I H. This means the — I AM Spirit. 
Thus — / means the Eternal Ego-Identity, H is always a breathing. Breath means 
Spirit, so the famous symbol of the Eternal Man — the Jesus-Jehovah — "both Lord and 
Christ" — means in the I H — I AM Spirit. 

According to the fable of Eden, Jehovah-God — that is, Jesus Christ — created 
the serpent, the most subtle beast of the field. This means — that the body of flesh and 
blood and bones is pure deception, an illusion of the physical senses, a self-made mir- 
age in thcjield, or habit, of carnal thinking. This is plainly seen in the brazen ser- 
pent in the wilderness. Brass is imitation of gold. Its sham glory is falsity. "All is 
not gold that glitters." "In the wilderness" means in the desert (nothingness) of 
carnal mind, where is erected the standard of deception, the brazen serpent, the 
Adam-man. We remember that the biting serpents in the wilderness were by no 
means unreal to the children of Israel, any more than are the snakes to the drunkard, 
or the neuralgic twinges to patients, or the deadly viper that came out of the fire and 
fastened upon the hand of Paul. But when the snake of brass, which they all knew 
to be an unreal one, was lifted up for them to behold its falsity, they were undeceived 
and healed of their wounds. Therefore is the body of Jesus put on a cross of denial 
(for he laid down his own life) that all the race of Adam may behold its sham and 
dissolve. Therefore we see the folly of tears at the communion table, as though the 
"glad tidings" of the Gospel were a funeral. 

How silly of the snake-bitten Israelites to grieve, because the brazen serpent 
were not a real one, and cry over a dead deception. .Such weep at the cross of Jesus, 
instead of heeding his words — "If ye love me, ye would rejoice because I go to 
my Father." Let the lie and vanity of the world, the flesh, and the devil come out 
on them, just as the blotches do upon patients with the small-pox and measles. The 
glitter and false delights of the gay age of time and matter are past their power to 
hurt when their falsity is seen 

Flee from Adam to Christ. Think of the idle search after the Holy Sepulchre 
No wonder they believe in death and die, when the)' lust after even the grave of 
God, and worship a tomb. Mark the deluded chase after the relics of idolatory 
among the hills and rocks of Palestine. What mockery is this ! Books of sacred 

112 — 



travel, the tombs of the prophets, fleshly mirage, full of death. No one whose 
heart is in love with Spirit can hallow dust. Jesus says of Spirit — "Hallowed 
be thy name." Let us put off this worship of graves, of caverns, of catacombs, of 
mounds, of Rosetta and Moabite Stones. Certain Adams have been called grave-dig- 
gers, because they spend their vanity in hunting out the curiosities of ruins and 
grave-yards. They are upstanding hyenas, scavengers, vultures, turkey -buzzards, 
who prowl in the wake of bullets and upon the path of lost caravans in Sahara. 
Have you never heard of those who burrow like swine in the well-filled grave of 
Babvlon? Thev dig in the dirt of Nineveh. They upheave the imaginations of Rome, 
Athens and Jerusalem. Thev are like roots in the dark soil that nurture the vast 
trees of carnal knowledge. -'All is vanity." 

Jesus Christ is our Life, if we say, / AM jfesus Christ To Adam he is death. 
/ AAfLiife, Spirit. Adam eats of his fleshy birth and death and is not. Spirit, the 
only true and only Christ-Being, eats the bread of his Spirit-Nature, his Body, and 
drinks the wine, or blood, or words of Life, and lives eternally. Straight is the way 
of Life. When the desert caravan moves straight on from oasis to oasis, it is never 
tracked by vultures. No buzzard haunts the march of peace, but our armies were sure 
to find them in the South, which is an open grave, into which non-being is ever 
progressing. How strange that flesh and its mind does not see these plain and 
emphatic preachings of its own vanity. Out of Christ is nothing; in him is all fullness 
of Life. If you do not know Christ, the true Life, you are Nothing. Jesus Christ is the 
only /; therefore all are in Jesus Christ. There is no death, for it has no /, which must 
ever say, / Am Life. 

Jesus Christ is the true minister, the typical clergyman. John, the Baptist, 
is another style of preacher. How different these from the modern kind ! John 
preached the twin formalities of morality and water baptism. John was less 
than the least in the Kingdom of Heaven, because morality is external, and, although 
the /of John is the same as the /of Jesus, John flinched when questioned and denied 
his Divine Ego: therefore, no wonder he is less than the least in the Kingdom. 

Jesus did not preach to catch a large salary, nor to induce a great fame, nor to get 
many to join his church. He did not feed the people with opinions, he spoke 
with authority. He cited Moses sometimes to agree and sometimes to refute his 
doctrines. He said he was before even their father Abraham, whose children His 
Father could make out of stones. He preached from his Ego -Identity, his /. 

Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph and Mary, stands for denial. Jesus Christ, 
the Eternal / of Being, the God-Man, is the word of true affiirmation. 

[Preached at Christian Science Theological Seminary, Chicago, III., August Tilth, 1890.] 



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